THE  BOOK  OF 
LIE5BYJOI1H 


Q?-/ 

^ 

<7 

University  of  California  •  Berkeley 

The  Theodore  H.  Koundakjian 

Collection 
of  American  Humor 


' 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES  BI 


WITH  MANY  PICTURES 
FROM  PEN  DRAWINGS 
BY  FRANK  VERBECK 


THE  MORSE  COMPANY 
NEW   YORK 

1896 


Copyright,  1896 
By  JOHN  LANGDON  HEATON. 

Entered  at  Stationers'  Hall,  London. 


ARGUMENT 


To  the  lovers  of  truth  these  pages  are  com 
mended. 

Nothing  is  so  truthful  as  an  honest  lie,  since 
it  bears  its  character  writ  large  upon  its  frank 
countenance  ;  while  truth,  in  the  guise  of  in 
credibility,  oft  cries  for  credence  like  a  hussy. 

As  for  the  lie  insidious,  the  lie  treacherous, 
the  deceitful  lie — sure  'tis  only  by  study  that 
we  may  learn  to  know  it,  as  the  surgeon  probes 
the  wound,  yet  unlovingly. 

So  here's  to  you  readers,  wishing  the  end  of 
falsehoods  and  all  manner  of  vain  speaking ! 

THE  AUTHOR. 


CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER.  PAGB. 

I.    "WHEN  I  WAS  WITH  JAMESON"     ....  9 
II.     "THERE   is   NO    '  ROAD   REFORM'  FOR  THE 

FLINTY  PATH  OF  TRUE  LOVE"  ....  21 

III.  LOVE  WILL  FIND  A  WAY?     No;  INGENUITY!  34 

IV.  LOVE  LAUGHS  AT  LIES 45 

V.     IN  WHICH  A  VISITOR  LEARNS  SOMETHING  OF 

THE  COUNTRY 60 

VI.     MARCH  GALES  AND  OTHERS 73 

VII.     DAUGHTERS  OF  EVE 86 

VIII.     LOVE  HATH  MURDERED  SLEEP 99 

'  IX.     A  WANDERER  FROM  THE  WRATH     .    .    .    .  112 
X.     THE  FISH  AND  His  LIE  ARE  NEVER  PARTED  122 
XI.     THE   EXPECTED    HAPPENS  ;    ALSO    THE    UN 
EXPECTED      132 

XII.     BACK  TO  THE  SOIL 142 

XIII.  NEMESIS  OVERTAKES  JOHN  ECKELS  ....  153 

XIV.  LA  BELLE  DAME  JAMAIS  SANS  MERCI  ...  165 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 


CHAPTER  I. 

"WHEN    I    WAS   WITH   JAMESON." 

"  WHETST  I  was  with  Jameson  at  Krugersdorp —  " 
began  the  returned  miner — 

"  The  mention  of  South  Africa  and  <  the  Crush- 
ings  of  all  the  Rand  '  brings  to  my 
mind,"  said  Dr.  Binninger,  lighting 
another  of  the  returned  miner's  ci 
gars  and  hitching  his  chair  a  trifle 
nearer  to  the  big  open  fire,  "  thoughts 
of  the  many  curious  ways  in  which 
money  is  made  and  lost.  Money 
makes  the  mare  go,  and  conversely, 
the  mare  makes  money  go.  The 
horse,  gentlemen —  " 

The  boom  of  the  doctor's  big  voice 
was  interrupted  by  brisk  steps  out 
side  the  door  and  the  entrance  of  a 
tall,  lean  man  with  a  saturnine  coun- 
£enance  and  drooping  black  moustache,  followed 


IO  THE   BOOK   OF   LIES. 

rather  hesitatingly  by  a  short,  fat  man,  with  a  close- 
clipped,  pointed  beard,  who  wore  the  air  of  a  stranger. 
Together  they  suggested  Don  Quixote  and  Sancho 
Panza. 

It  was  a  strange  scene  they  looked  upon,  as  their 
eyes  wandered  over  the  dark  walls  and  dusky  ceiling 
of  the  quaintest  club-room  in  New  York.  Heavy, 
sagging  beams,  black  with  age,  spanned  the  low 
ceiling.  The  huge  jaws  of  a  fireplace,  two  hundred 
years  old,  were  fanged  with  gigantic  andirons  cur 
iously  twisted  out  of  wrought  iron,  and  standing 
nearly  man-high  upon  the  uneven  brick  hearth. 
Outside,  in  what  was  by  day  one  of  the  busiest  down 
town  streets,  reigned  the  quiet  of  the  grave.  It  was 
as  if  the  ghosts  of  all  the  dead  and  gone  New  York 
ers,  who  had  two  hundred  years  ago  strolled  Nassau 
street  and  the  Maagde  Paatje,  had  resumed  their 
sway  and  driven  forth  the  bustling  presence  of  their 
successors. 

Grouped  round  an  open  fire  of  big  beech  logs 
were  about  a  dozen  men,  most  of  whom  had  the 
look  of  the  typical  New  Yorker  who  has  prospered, 
and  whose  appearance  gives  little  hint  of  his  pro 
fession. 

The  plump  newcomer  was  introduced  by  his  guide, 
long  John  Eckels,  as  Mr.  Parker  Adams,  and  was 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 


II 


soon  stretching  his  short  legs  toward  the  fire  from  a 
comfortable  easy-chair  in  the  wide  semi-circle. 

"  As  you  came  in,  Mr.  Adams,"  said  Owen  Lang- 
don,  one  of  the  group  of  men  by  the  fire,  "we  were 
speaking  of  horses,  and  I  had  it  in  mind  to  tell  a 
little  incident  which  once  came  to  my  notice.  There 
was,  about  a  year  ago,  a  saddle-horse  down  in  Bay 
Ridge  which  died  of  love,  and  for  a  lady.  This  ani 
mal  cherished  such  a  deep  affection  for  its  fair  young 
owner,  that  it  grew  inconsolable  when  she  became 
engaged  to  a  bicycle  young  man,  and  gave  up  her 
daily  canter  in  Prospect 
Park.  Day  after  day  the 
noble  animal  mourned 
in  its  luxurious  box- 
stall,  or  moped  about 
the  pasture  with  dull 
eye  and  lifeless  attitude.  One 
day  the  thoughtless  cause  of 
so  much  misery  came  stroll 
ing  by  the  pasture  fence, 
leaning  on  the  arm  of  the 
young  man.  Just  opposite  where  the  agonized  ani 
mal  stood,  she  took  her  lover  affectionately  by  the 
ear,  and,  without  apparent  difficulty,  dragged  his 
head  down  upon  her  shoulder*  Then,  as  she  mur- 


12  THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 

mured  low  in  his  ear,  words  of  endearment,  such  as 
once  she  had  lavished  upon  the  horse,  the  intelli 
gent  beast's  sufferings  grew  too  great  to  bear. 
Waiting  to  hear  no  more  than  *  It's  its  own  ownest 
darlingest's 'ittlest  mopsy  wopsy  rosebud  dumpling 
toad,  so  it  is,'  the  maddened  animal  began  sawing 
its  throat  along  the  barbed  wire  of  the  fence.  The 
blood  from  its  wounded  neck  flecked  the  fair  cheek 
of  the  girl,  and  recalled  her  to  her  senses.  By  the 
most  heroic  exertions  the  life  of  the  animal  was 
saved,  only  that  it  might  give,  on  a  subsequent  oc 
casion,  further  proof  of  its  devotion. 

"  The  young  lady  soon  forgot  the  incident  and 
was  married.  A  few  weeks  later — " 

"  Hem  !  The  horse,  gentlemen,  as  I  was  about 
to  remark,"  said  big  Dr.  Binninger,  stroking  his 
short,  gray  side-whiskers,  "  is  a  noble  animal.  It 
invented  the  horse-race  when  it  gamboled  with  its 
mate  in  the  unfenced  fields  of  Eden,  fresh  from  its 
Maker's  hands.  It  was  left  for  man  to  invent  bet 
ting  on  horse-races.  Man  thinks  himself  wiser  than 
the  horse,  but  cannot  eat  so  much,  nor  run  so  fast  ; 
yet  these  are  his  best  tricks.  I  am  a  Kentuckian,  my 
self,  as  you  know,  hence  I  sympathize  deeply  with 
my  old  friend,  Col.  James  Hudson,  of  Lexington, 
who,  in  the  palmy  days  of  the  Hudson  stables,  was 


THE   BOOK   OF  LIES.  13 

one  of  the  most  open-hearted  men  of  the  old  state. 
But  his  money  went  up,  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem, 
in  oil  wells  and  silver  mines,  until  a  year  ago  all 
that  was  left  to  him  was  one  useless,  old  animal, 
that  he  called  '  Baldy ' — short  for  Osbaldistone. 

"Well,  suh,  one  day,  as  Col.  Hudson  was  lying 
flat  on  his  back  in  the  pasture,  meditating  whether 
it  was  unmanly  for  a  Southern  gentleman  of  the  old 
school  to  seek  self-destruction,  old  Baldy  came  and 
nosed  him  until  he  was  compelled  to  get  up,  then, 
gently  gripping  his  sleeve,  led  him  away  to  the 
middle  of  the  field,  where  he  had  pawed  a  deep 
hole  under  an  old  oak.  There  Baldy  went  down  on 
his  knees,  and  presently  drew  forth,  with  a  whinny  of 
pleasure,  a  broad,  golden  coin,  which  he  laid  in  the 
colonel's  lap.  Gentlemen,  it  was  a  Spanish  doubloon 
of  unimpeachable  virtue  and  ancient  mint.  Hud 
son's  gloom  vanished  in  a  minute.  Running  to 
borrow  a  spade,  he  had  presently  unearthed  a  strong 
box,  heavy  with  similar  gold  pieces.  Faithful 
Baldy,  unable  to  lift  the  box,  had,  with  the  stumps 
of  his  broken,  old  teeth,  painfully  gnawed  a  hole 
through  the  iron-bound  cover,  and  taken  out  a  sample 
coin  for  his  master.  With  tears  of  gratitude  stream 
ing  down  his  face,  Hudson  fell  on  Baldy's  neck  and 
sobbed.  He  will  never  sell  the  dear  old  horse," 


14  THE  BOOK   OF   LIES. 

"  Get  much  ? "  queried  Jim  Hart. 

"I  never  ventured  to  make  intrusive  inquiries," 
replied  Dr.  Binninger,  rather  stiffly  ;  "  but  common 
report  placed  the  value  of  the  contents  of  the  box 
at  $37,519.  It  is  supposed  that  the  coins  were  buried 
there  by  some  of  the  early  Spanish  explorers  of 
our  noble  waterways." 

"  Reminds  me,"  said  Hart,  "  of  the  hypnotic 
horse  of  the  Woonasquatucket.  Belonged  to  one 
Cargill,  farmer  down  in  Rhode  Island.  Went  State 
Fair,  Narragansett  Park,  last  Fall.  Remember? 
Had  a  fakir  there.  Shammed  dead.  Hypnotic 
trance.  Buried.  Ten  cents  a  peep.  Horse  got 
wind  of  it.  Two  days  later  Cargill  saw  horse  in 
pasture,  waving  front  hoofs  before  nose  of  suscep 
tible  young  mare.  Svengali  business.  Slow  music. 
See  ?  By  and  by,  young  mare  keeled  right  over 
into  big  hole,  horses  had  pawed  out  with  hoofs. 
Other  horses  just  going  to  paw  dirt  back  into  hole 
on  top  of  mare.  Cargill  said  nay,  nay.  Always 
thought  Cargill  chump.  Pity  spoil  experiment." 

The  fire  crackled  low,  and  presently,  with  a  part 
ing  flicker,  went  out,  leaving  a  great  bed  of  glowing, 
coals  that  cast  big,  weird  shadows  upon  the  black 
walls.  The  room  was  dim  with  cigar  smoke,  and 
eloquent  of  peace,  hospitality,  and  comfort. 


THE   BOOK   OF  LIES.  I", 

Presently  a  deep  sigh  of  content  broke  from  the 
huge  chair  into  whose  depths  John  Eckels  was  lux 
uriously  burrowing,  and  the  knight  of  the  sorrowful 
countenance  spoke  :  "  If  it  be  truth  the  poet  sings, 
that  a  sorrow's  crown  of  sorrow  is  remembering  hap 
pier  things,  then  I  owe  you  gratitude.  Hart.  The 
sense  of  having  comfortably  dined,  the  glorious  fire 
and  boon  companionship  give  me  pleasure's  crown 
of  pleasure  in  remembering  a  former  condition 
which  was  next  door  to  hell  itself.  Doubtless  some 
of  you  have  wondered  how  my  cadaverous  frame 
has  been  proof  against  the  good  cheer  of  the  Trav 
elers'  Club,  whose  magic  cooking  is  well  advertised 
by  the  comfortable  girth  of  some  of  you.  I  am 
sure  no  one  could  have  guessed  that  my  extreme 
emaciation  is  due  to  passing  two  years  of  my  life  in 
a  hypnotic  boarding-house. 

"  It  was  when  I  was  a  young  man,  newly  come  to 
the  city,"  resumed  Eckels,  after  a  few  quick 
puffs  at  his  cigar,  "that  I  visited,  while  looking  for 
board,  a  certain  house,  which  has  since  been  pulled 
down.  I  didn't  particularly  like  its  looks,  but  for 
some  reason,  which  I  now  understand  better  than  I 
did  then,  after  seeing  the  mistress,  I  felt  irresistibly 
impelled  to  take  a  room.  No,  she  was  not  person 
ally  attractive.  I  fared,  as  I  then  thought^  on  the 


16  THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 

fatness  of  the  earth.  So  did  we  all.  The  guests 
reveled  in  roast  turkey,  in  exquisite  soups,  in  rare 
old  cheese,  and  perfect  coffee.  Did  anyone  so  much 
as  mention  a  wish  for  a  special  article  of  food,  it 
was  forthcoming,  with  a  smile,  immediately  or  at 
the  next  meal.  It  ought  to  have  been  a  happy  fam 
ily,  yet  the  boarders  somehow  seemed  a  lean,  ill-fed, 
and  low-spirited  lot,  and,  as  you  may  well  believe, 
none  more  so  than  myself. 

"  One  day  a  tall,  fine-looking  gentleman  called  to 
look  at  rooms.  If  Mrs.  Smith  had  known  she  was 
dealing  with  a  professional  hypnotist,  she  would 
have  shown  him  the  door.  In  a  moment  the  pro 
fessor  felt  that  she  was  trying  to  hypnotize  him  to 
take  a  room.  Exerting  all  his  own  psychic  force,  he 
soon  had  her  will  under  complete  control.  He 
guessed  the  truth.  She  had  for  years  been  hypno 
tizing  her  servants  to  serve,  and  her  guests  to  de 
vour,  slops  for  coffee,  salt  pork  for  tenderloin,  and 
chuck  roast  for  turkey  ;  and  had  amassed  a  consid 
erable  sum  of  money.  She  had  not  otherwise  inter 
fered  with  us,  than  to  secure  large  rates  for  poor 
board.  We  were  all  able  to  attend  to  our  work. 
She  could  have  played  hob  with  our  business  ar 
rangements,  and  got  rich  faster,  but  I  think  she  was 
afraid  of  criminal  proceedings. 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  I? 

"Well,  to  make  a  long  story  short,  Prof.  Lauder- 
dale  was  a  good  sort,  and  he  resolved  to  rescue  us, 
and  feed  us  back  to  health  at  Mrs.  Smith's  expense. 

"  So  he  hypnotized  the  old  lady  in  turn  into  pam 
pering  us  with  real  luxuries,  and  into  imagining  that 
the  codfish-and-prunes  regime  was  still  in  force. 
Daily  her  ill-gotten  gains  melted  away  ;  daily  the 
boarders  regained  their  strength  and  spirits.  Never 
was  such  a  boarding-house  known  before  or  since  ! 
We  breakfasted,  lunched  and  dined  like  Lucullus. 
Mrs.  Smith  remained  perfectly  happy,  little  know 
ing  that  her  hypnotic  power  was  being  sapped  with 
her  bank  balance.  Most  of  the  boarders  got  as  fat 
as  butter,  but  in  my  own  case,  the  lean  habit  was 
too  firmly  fixed  to  be  eradicated.  When  we  were 
all  restored  to  pretty  good  condition,  Lauderdale  let 
us  into  the  secret,  and  was  amply  rewarded  by  our 
gratitude.  Mrs.  Smith  is  now  the  unhappy  inmate 
of  a  lunatic  asylum,  where  she  imagines  that  she  is 
Queen  Victoria,  and  dines  daily  on  seven-course 
dinners,  cooked  by  the  fires  of  an  ill-regulated  imag 
ination." 

"  When  I  was  with  Jameson  at  Krugersdorp — " 
began  the  returned  miner — 

"Just  a  moment,  if  you  please,"  said  Harry  Por 
ter,  jumping  to  his  feet,  a  tall,  impetuous,  fair-haired 


1 8  THE  BOOK   OF  LIES. 

young  .ellow,  looking  like  the  scholar  and  athlete 
that  he  was.  "  I  see  the  night  is  getting  old,  and  I 
have  an  announcement  that  has  been  trembling  on 
my  tongue  all  the  evening.  I  would  like  that  Jame 
son  story  saved  till  the  next  Ladies'  Night,  when — the 
fact  is,  there  is  a— I  mean,"  he  ended  desperately, 
'  *  I  got  examined  for  life  insurance  to-day.  And — " 

There  was  a  moment  of  blank  silence,  when  Eck 
els  jumped  to  his  feet,  shouting  :  "  Why,  of  course  ! 
Boys,  he's  going  to  be  married  !  Give  us  your  flip 
per,  old  chappie  !  "  And  in  a  moment  Harry's 
back  was  being  slapped,  his  hand  boisterously 
shaken,  his  ribs  punched,  and  a  chorus  of  excited 
comment  arose. 

"  Break  away  ! "  shouted  Tom  Fenton,  a  man  of 
medium  height,  with  a  smooth-shaven,  actor-like  face, 
and  hair  slightly  tinged  with  gray,"  Give  him  a  chance 
to  breathe.  This  mob  and  the  mention  of  insur- 
•ance  remind  me  of  a  crowd  I  saw  once  in  San  Fran 
cisco.  It  was  about  9  o'clock  in  the  forenoon. 
The  throng  reached  right  across  Market  street,  and 
tapered  off  away  down  the  block.  As  luck  would 
have  it,  a  runaway  horse  dashed  into  the  thickest  of 
it,  just  as  I  reached  the  spot,  and  in  the  accident 
.seven  insurance  agents  were  slightly,  and  three  se 
riously/hurt.  About  a  dozen  other  insurance  men 


THE   BOOK   OF   LIES.  19 

attended  the  wounded.  This  I  learned  afterward. 
A  reporter  of  the  Standard  undertook  to  discover 
why  so  many  insurance  men  were  waiting  on  that 
particular  corner  so  early  in  the  day,  and  learned 
that  there  was  within  the  building  a  man  whose  fire 
policy  was  due  to  expire  at  noon,  and  who  thus  far 
had  declined  to  reinsure." 

"I  suppose,  Harry,"  said  Dr.  Binninger,  "that 
the  young  lady  in  the  case  is  Miss  Copeland,  whom 
I  have  unfortunately  seen  only  at  a  distance  as  yet. 
A  charming  lady,  charming  lady  !  Red-headed 
girls  are  the  nicest — " 

"  It's  the  younger  one  ;  the  brown-haired  one," 
muttered  Harry  Porter,  hastily,  with  a  flush  of  an 
noyance. 

"Just  so,"  said  the  imperturbable  Binninger,  "let 
me  congratulate  you  anew,  sir  !  As  I  was  saying, 
red-haired  girls  would  be  the  nicest  kind  of  girls,  if 
it  weren't  for  the  incontrovertible  fact  that  the  other 
Jcjnds  of  girls  are  just  as  nice  as  girls  can  be.  Red 
hair,  gentlemen,  denotes  an  oratorical  temperament. 
Fitzsimmons  is  red-headed.  So  was  Thomas  Jeffer 
son.  Cicero  was  red-headed,  or  else  he  wasn't.  I 
have  forgotten  which,  but  really  the  point  is  imma 
terial. 

"  It  seems  undisputed  that  red  hair  generates  heat 


20  THE   BOOK   OF   LIES. 

more  rapidly  than  other  kinds.  I  remember  that 
Mamie  Wayne,  a  dear  old  friend  I  used  to  know  in 
Olathe,  Kansas,  was  red-headed.  One  day  she  was 
cleaning  her  last  winter's  blue  silk  with  benzine, 
when  the  inflammable  stuff  took  fire,  presumably 
from  her  fair  tresses  falling  low  over  her  work.  In 
a  moment  the  room  was  filled  with  heated  air,  which 
expelled  the  cooler  and  heavier  atmosphere.  Kan 
sas  houses,  I  may  parenthetically  remark,  are  of  very 
light  and  flimsy  construction,  which  partially  ac 
counts  for  the  easy  victory  they  yield  to  the  indi 
genous  cyclone.  As  the  air  grew  hotter  from  the 
blazing  furnes,  the  entire  house,  rising  at  first  slowly, 
soon  shot  upward  like  a  Montgolfier  balloon.  There 
was  little  wind,  and  it  could  presently  be  seen,  at  the 
height  of  two  miles,  burning  so  furiously  that  not  a 
piece  of  it,  except  a  few  bricks  out  of  the  chimney, 
ever  reached  the  ground.  My  dear  young  friend 
was  never  again  seen  alive.  But  come,  gentlemen, 
the  hour  is  late,  and  some  of  us  are  no  longer  so 
young  as  once  we^were." 

With  lingering  farewells  and  bursts  of  laughter,  the 
men  slowly  drifted  out  of  the  room.  There  was  the 
sound,  for  a  little  space,  of  parting  footsteps  on  the 
deserted  pavement,  and  then  the  narrow  street  com 
posed  itself  again  to  sleep  until  the  dawn  of  a  new  day. 


CHAPTER  II. 

"  THERE    IS   NO     '  ROAD    REFORM  '     FOR     THE     FLINTY 
PATH    OF    TRUE    LOVE." 

"BEEN  bicycling,  hey?"  queried  Dr.  Binninger, 
glancing  down  the  dining-table  in  Owen  Langdon's 
Brooklyn  home.  His  eyes  rested  upon  a  pretty  girl 
with  brown  hair,  whom  you  would  suspect  at  once 
as  being  the  youngest  of  the  Copeland  sisters. 
After  catching  Harry  Porter's  look  of  devotion,  as 
he  gazed  on  her,  you  would  have  been  sure  of  it. 

"  Yes,"  replied  Mrs.  Langdon,  seeing  that  the 
lovers  had  not  noticed  the  query;  "  alas  for  weary 
me,  we  have  !  If  I  ever  undertake  to  chaperon  an 
other  lot  of  young  people  on  such  a  trip — well  !  " 

"  Roads  good  ?  " 

"Fine!  "  said  Harry;  "we  ran  out  along  the 
Merrick  road  for  miles.  It's  in  perfect  condition." 

"  I  believe  great  progress  has  been  made  in  road 
improvement  in  this  vicinity,"  was  Dr.  Binninger's 
comment.  "  I  regret  that  in  my  own  beloved  South 
a  less  satisfactory  state  of  affairs  exists,  largely,  it  is 
true,  owing  to  the  unfortunate  poverty  of  the  people. 
Here  and  there,  however,  good  work  is  being  done, 

21 


22  THE   BOOK  OF  LIES. 

as  by  my  dear  old  friend,  Dr.  Onesimus  Rylance  of 
Carson,  Tennessee,     Hem  !  " 

"Won't  you  tell  us  about  it  ?"  queried  the  hostess; 
"  I'm  sure  it  would  interest  our  young  wheelmen  and 
women." 

"  Hem  !  "  repeated  the  doctor,  "  if  my  explana 
tion  proves  too  technical  for  a  social  occasion,  pray 
check  me.  The  lower  orders  of  creation  are,  as  we 
naturalists  know,  less  easily  subject  to  death  than 
the  mammalia.  A  sheep-tick's  locomotive  powers 
are  stimulated,  rather  than  otherwise,  by  bisection, 
and  a  decapitated  snake  will  writhe,  if  not  until  sun 
down,  at  any  rate  a  long  time.  This  circumstance 
suggested  to  Dr.  Rylance  the  idea  of  splicing  snakes 
of  different  varieties  to  produce  a  less  objectionable 
composite  reptile  than  most  of  those  common  in  our 
section.  Selecting  a  rattlesnake  and  black-snake  of 
equal  size,  he  decapitated  both,  and  joined  the  rat 
tler's  body  and  the  black-snake's  head  with  a  neat 
suture.  The  result  was  a  snake  which  could  coil 
and  strike  all  day  without  inconvenience  to  itself  or 
others.  Soon,  in  accordance  with  the  well-known 
Darwinian  law  of  modification,  the  composite  snake's 
nose  became  indurated  to  a  high  degree.  The  doc 
tor  had  merely  intended  to  produce  a  curiosity,  but 
seeing  how  rapidly  the  compound  snake  gained 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  23 

strength  by  exercise,  he  conceived  the  idea  of  use 
fully  employing  it.  The  result  was  so  favorable, 
that  he  has  now  a  whole  detachment  of  Patent  Com 
pound-Snake  Stone-Crushers  at  work,  solving,  for 
that  part  of  Tennessee,  the  problem  of  good  roads. 
It  has  been  computed  that  a  Compound  Snake  hits 
a  stone  with  a  force  considerably  greater  than  that 
of  a  hammer  swung  by  an  adult  male  human,  listen 
ing  for  the  dinner-horn." 

Ann  Copeland,  who  was  in  a  mood  to  beam  upon 
everyone,  broke  into  a  ringing  peal  of  laughter. 

"  Oh,  you  funny  man  !  "  she  gasped,  bending  upon 
the  doctor  a  look  from  her  big,  dark  eyes,  which 
Harry  considered  a  wasted  sweet. 

"  My  dear  young  lady,"  said  Dr.  Binninger,  in 
his  most  grandiose  manner,  "  I  hope  it  is  only  be 
cause  this  is  our  first  meeting  that  you  find  me 
amusing.  In  my  own  state,  by  men  at  least,  I  as 
sure  you  I  am  accustomed  to  be  taken  seriously." 

The  offended  doctor  was  a  picture  of  pomposity 
Herculean  of  build,  smug-faced,  side-whiskered,  he 
looked  like  a  large  paper  edition  of  Depew,  with 
wide  margins,  and  the  sense  of  humor  expurgated. 

"  Oh,  I  say,  Langdon,"  interposed  Harry  Porter, 
hastily,  "  what  was  the  rest  of  that  yarn  you  were 
telling  us  about  the  horse  that  fell  in  love  ?  " 


24  THE   BOOK  OF  LIES. 

Langdon  glanced  around  the  table.  There  were 
present — besides  the  host  and  his  wife,  Dr.  Binnin- 
ger,  and  the  newly-engaged  pair — John  Eckels,  a 
young  niece  of  the  Langdons,  as  pretty  as  a  picture, 
and  as  silent;  and  Miss  Copeland,  Ann's  elder  sis 
ter,  of  the  Titianesque  locks,  and  herself  an  exceed 
ingly  pretty  girl. 

"  Oh,  it  wasn't  much  of  a  story,"  he  began, 
modestly.  "  This  horse,  you  must  know,  ladies, 
had  fallen  into  despair  because  his  young  mistress, 
becoming  engaged,  had,  with  the  cruel  unconscious 
ness  of  love,  neglected  him.  -He  attempted  suicide 
by  cutting  his  throat  on  a  barbed-wire  fence,  but 
was  rescued  and  healed.  The  wire  was  removed, 
and  a  plain  board  fence  substituted.  One  day,  how 
ever,  the  horse  was  missed  from  its  pasture.  The 
loss  was  promptly  advertised.  About  three  days 
later  a  handsome  young  Irishman  came  to  the  door 
— this  was  in  Bay  Ridge — in  answer  to  the  adver 
tisement. 

"  '  And  have  you  found  dear  old  Hero  ? '  asked 
the  young  lady,  now  a  happy  bride. 

"  '  Sure,  Oi  kem  to  tell  ye,  mum,  seein'  as  its  me 
day  ahf,  that  day  before  yistiddy  as  I  was  goin'  me 
roun's,  jist  in  the  gray  o'  the  marntn' — Oi'm  a  po- 
leeceman,  mum— Oi  see  a  moighty  foine  harse  an- 


THE   BOOK   OF  LIES.  2$ 

swerin'  to  the  description,  a-standin'  outside  a  build- 
in  in  the  foorst  ward  o'  Long  Island  City,  the  same 
bein'  on  me  bate.  Sure,  it  was  a  wise  baste  to  get 
that  far,  ahl  by  himself.  He  must  ha'  come  ahl 
the  way  'roun*  by  Jamaiky  an'  Mashpet',  bekase  he 
cud  niver  ha'  crashed  th'  shwing  bridge  at  Hunter's 
Pint  widout  wings,  it  bein'  ahlways  as  open  as  Tony 
Miller's  bar.  So  Oi  kem  to  break  it  to  ye,  loike. 
Ye'll  niver  luk  upon  'im  again  in  this  loife,  though 
maybe  in  the  hereafter.' 

"  '  But  why  ?     What  was  the  building  ? ' 

"  *  Sure,  mem,  its  meself's  be  the  lasht  to  say  a 
wurrud  to  dim  the  eye  of  beauty  wid  one  usheless 
tear.  'Twas  a  sausage  factory,  and  that's  God's  own 
tfutV 

"Thus  you  see,"  concluded  Langdon,  "  by  the 
exercise  of  what  persistence  and  ingenuity  Hero  was 
enabled  to  quit  himself  of  a  life  which  had  grown 
intolerable." 

"  Oh,  how  lovely  !  "  murmured  Ann  Copeland, 
glancing  shyly  up  at  Harry;  "why  don't  you  ever 
tell  me  things  like  that  ?  " 

"  Would  you  like  me  to  ?"  he  murmured;  "I'm 
afraid  I  can't.  lean  only  tell  you  the  truth;  you're 
the  dearest — " 

"  And  yet,"  said  John  Eckels,  pulling  at  his  long, 


26  THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 

drooping  moustache,  "  I  suppose  dogs  surpass  all 
other  animals  in  their  capacity  for  affection  for  hu 
man  beings.  I  myself  once  owned  a  collie  which 
delighted  in  going  with  me  on  camping  expeditions. 
On  one  occasion  a  cold  wave  struck  the  camp,  and  I 
began  to  cough  badly.  Just  then  I  missed  my  dog,  and 
was  in  very  bad  humor  about  it  for  a  whole  day,  but 
at  night  was  astounded  to  see  the  animal  returning 
at  full  speed,  with  a  couple  of  thick  flannel  shirts 
and  a  bottle  of  something  pretty  good  for  coughs, 
gripped  firmly  in  his  teeth.  He  had  traveled  twenty 
miles  to  get  them  from  a  country  store,  which  was 
left  unwatched  at  dinner-time. 

«  On  another  occasion  he  saved  me  from  a  rattle 
snake's  deadly  bite  by  thrusting  his  own  body  be 
tween  me  and  the  angry  reptile.  When  bitten,  off 
he  started  at  full  speed.  Thinking  him  mad,  I  ran 
after  him,  and,  following  his  trail,  presently  found 
him  in  a  moonshiners'  camp,  whose  existence  I  had 
never  suspected,  eagerly  lapping  up  a  little  pool  of 
anti-toxic  remedy  which  he  had  obtained  by  knock 
ing  over  and  smashing  several  demijohns.  He  re 
covered  all  right. 

"I  think,"  Eckels  went  on,,  "  foe  was  the  most 
intelligent  dog  I  ever  knew.  When  I  was.  living  in 
Chebunticook,  Maine,  he  established  in  winter  a  to- 


THE   BOOK   OF  LIES.  2/ 

boggan  slide  of  his  own  on  one  of  the  sfeep  hills 
that  abound  in  that  town.  His  first  purely  imitative 
step  was  to  tear  a  huge  strip  of  birch  bark  from  a 
tree.  The  surface  of  this  he  rubbed  with  a  cake  of 
soap,  abstracted  from  my  guest  chamber.  He  used 
to  froth  so  at  the  mouth  from  chewing  soap,  by  the 
way,  that  he  started  a  fine  mad-dog  scare  in  Che- 
bunticook,  although  it  was  midwinter.  His  method 
of  using  the  toboggan  was  to  lie  down  upon  it  at  the 
hilltop,  holding  the  lower  edge  up  with  his  teeth  and 
steering  by  dragging  along  the  snow  his  bushy  tail, 
which,  after  three  days  of  coasting,  was  worn  as 
bare  as  a  rat's." 

"  Now  you  tell  one,  Harry,"  whispered  Ann  Cope- 
land. 

"  I  can't,  love;  on  my  life  I  can't,"  groaned 
Harry,  in  visible  dejection. 

"  Very  well,  Mr.  Porter  !  Don't  give  yourself 
any  trouble  on  my  account,"  she  said;  and  before 
the  bewildered  Harry  could  reply,  the  girl  had 
turned,  with  her  sweetest  smile,  to  Dr.  Binninger,  who 
sat  at  her  other  side. 

"  Doctor,"  she  began,  "  I  am  very  much  inter 
ested  in  the  subject.  Surely  you,  with  your  wide 
knowledge  of  men  and  affairs,  must  know  of  similar 
instances  of  canine  devotion." 


28' 


THE  BOOK   OF  LIES. 


"  Certainly,  my  dear  young  lady  !  bless  me,  yes  !" 
responded  Dr.  Binninger;  and  the  vast  smile,  evoked 
by  the  flattering  appeal,  was  marvelous  to  behold. 
"  Hem  !  If  the  subject  is  deemed  one  suited  to  a 
mixed  gathering,  I  will  relate  a  little  reminiscence 
of  a  famous  temperance  revival  in  Yarmouth,  Nova 
Scotia.  Jerry  Dibdin,*  a  noted  drunkard  of  the 
place,  had  a  dog  which  became  much  interested  in 
the  meetings.  Again  and  again  the  animal  would 
run  to  the  door  of  the  little  open  tent,  under  which 


they  were  held,  whine  wistfully,  and  trot  away  again. 
One  day  Dibdin,  drunker  than  usual,  was  unsteadily 
standing  beside  a  low  hand-cart  in  the  long  village 
street,  when  Rover,  who  had  never  before  been 
known  to  do  so  rude  a  thing,  ran  plump  against  him, 
upsetting  him  into  the  cart,  where  he  lay  sprawled 
upon  a  few  remnants  of — ah — of  deteriorated  fish, 
utterly  unable  to  rise.  The  dog,  with  one  quick, 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  29 

glad  bark  of  joy,  grasped  the  handle  bar  of  the  cart, 
and  tugged  away  at  it  until  he  finally  trotted,  with 
his  queerly  assorted  load,  right  down  the  middle 
aisle  of  the  tent,  and  paused,  panting,  but  happy,  at 
the  mourners'  bench.  When  Dibdin  recovered,  he 
was  so  moved  by  this  proof  of  the  faithful  animal's 
devotion,  that  he  did  not  touch  a  drop  of  liquor  for 
seventeen  days." 

"  Oh,  if  I  could  only  be  loved  like  that  !  "  sighed 
Ann  Copeland,  gazing  appealingly  up  at  the  gigan 
tic  narrator. 

What  Dr.  Binninger  said  in  reply  was  never 
known.  It  could  not  have  been  wise,  or  worthy  of 
recalling. 

"  Fie,  Dr.  Binninger  !"  was  Ann's  response,  "  if 
a  man  is  as  old  as  his  heart,  who  here  is  so  young 
as  you  ?  " 

"  The  little  minx!  "  thought  Mrs.  Langdon.  But 
she  only  said:  "  Owen,  what  was  the  queer  incident 
you  were  once  telling  about  the  dog  that  could 
count?" 

"  Crows  can  count  two,  but  not  three  or  four," 
observed  Harry  Porter,  in  a  desperate  attempt  to 
win  laurels  as  a  raconteur.  Then  he  blushed  and 
became  six  feet  two  of  blonde  embarrassment. 

"  The  incident  I  am  about  to  relate  did  not  come 


36  THE  BOOK  OF  LIES, 

under  my  own  eye,"  began  Langdon  ;  "  a  business 
acquaintance  told  me  about  it.  For  a  long  time  the 
owner  of  the  animal,  Bent  Burdock,  a  methodical  old 
mountaineer  in  Murfreesboro',  Tennessee,  was  puz 
zled  to  guess  how  the  dog  managed  to  know  exactly 
at  what  hour  in  the  morning  to  awaken  him,  by 
thrusting  its  cold  muzzle  against  his  face.  One  day 
he  was  permitted  to  oversleep  himself  two  hours. 
Waking  with  a  start,  he  presently  remembered  that 
on  the  previous  night  he  had  omitted  to  take  his 
regular  9  o'clock  dram  of  tansy  bitters.  The  truth 
was  out.  The  dog  had  simply  reckoned  from  9  P.  M. 
to  7  A.  M.,  eight  hours,  by  counting  the  monotonous 
thump,  thump,  thump  on  the  floor,  as  he  wagged  his 
tail,  72  thumps  to  the  minute,  4,320  to  the  hour,  wak 
ing  Bent  just  after  the  34,560^1  wag.  The  dog  had 
learned  to  count  by  tending  sheep." 

"  Do  you  see,"  said  Mrs.  Langdon,  in  a  low  tone, 
to  John  Eckels  who  sat  at  her  right,  "  how  that  out 
rageous  girl  is  making  love  to  the  old  fool  ?  There  I 
I  ought  not  to  speak  so  about  a  guest  !  Owen  would 
ask  him  and  his  silly  old  stories  ! " 

"  Owen  is  a  pretty  good  teller  of  tales,  himself," 
remarked  Eckels. 

"Yes,  but  that's  different,"  said  the  lady,  turning 
upon  Eckels  such  a  pair  of  clear  gray  eyes  that  he 


THE   BOOK  OF  LIES.  31 

presently  fell  to  thinking,  with  his  divided  mind 
partly  upon  Miss  Copeland's  ruddy  locks,  that  he 
also  would  like  to  have  such  a  champion. 

"  Please  tell  something,  Mr.  Eckels,"  added  the 
hostess,  in  an  undertone  ;  "  anything  to  distract  her 
attention.  Look  what  a  picture  of  misery  poor 
Harry  is  ! " 

"  Perhaps,"  began  Eckels,  hastily,  "Miss  Ann 
might  be  interested  in  a  big  Newfoundland  dog  I 
used  to  know  in  Paris,  Maine.  This  dog,  which 
was  formerly  accustomed  to  attend  the  Episcopal 
Church  in  that  town  with  its  owners,  is  one  of  the 
treasured  possessions  of  the  Bowman  family,  now 
residing  in  another  village.  In  their  present  place 
of  residence  there  is  no  church  of  the  Episcopal 
denomination,  and  Bones,  the  dog,  has  often  been 
coaxed  to  enter  the  Methodist  Church,  but  has  as 
often  refused.  One  Sunday  morning,  not  long  ago, 
the  family  was  horrified  at  missing  the  baby,  baby- 
wagon  and  all,  but  was  relieved,  after  hours  of  har 
rowing  anxiety,  by  a  telegram  from  Paris  :  «  Baby 
all  right.'  The  dog  had  risen  at  night,  wrapped  the 
baby  up  warmly  in  its  carriage,  in  which  it  always 
slept,  and,  taking  the  handle  bar  in  his  teeth,  wheeled 
it  eighteen  miles  to  its  old  church,  where  he  pre 
sented  it  at  the  altar-rail  for  baptism. 


32  THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 

"  Circumstances  and  personal  taste  have  com 
bined,"  Eckels  went  on  without  pausing,  as  if  fear 
ing  an  interruption  by  the  big  ex-Kentuckian,  "to 
make  me  something  of  a  connoisseur  of  dogs.  I 
have  known  two  who  could  infallibly  foretell  the 
weather.  One  belonged  to  Asa  Ackerson  of  Man 
hattan,  Kansas.  Ackerson  valued  his  dog  at  $3,500. 
For  twenty-four  hours  before  a  rain  storm,  the  ani 
mal  will  eat  nothing  but  grass,  refusing  the  most 
tempting  ham  and  eggs,  with  milk  gravy.  Thus 
Ackerson  has  not  only  timely  warning  of  storms 
himself,  but  makes  a  pot  of  money  supplying  phono 
graphic  weather  warnings  to  317  farmers,  at  twenty- 
five  cents  a  warn,  besides  winning  a  good  sum  hiring 
the  dog  out  to  do  lawn  mowing  in  wet  weather. 

"  The  other  dog  was  the  property  of  Bently  Whit 
man  of  Topeka,  Kansas.  Kansas  has  such  a  lot  of 
weather  that  it  develops  the  meteorological  faculty 
in  every  one.  Benjy — that's  Whitman's  dog — had 
only  three  legs,  and  was  blind  of  one  eye,  but  he 
was  dearly  loved.  For  twenty  hours  preceding  a 
rain  storm,  Benjy  carried  his  tail  curled  between  his 
legs.  When  the  weather  was  *  set  fair,'  the  tail 
curled  over  his  back  jauntily,  and  if  there  was  rea 
son  to  apprehend  high  winds  or  a  storm,  he  used  to 
wag  his  tail  excitedly,  and  lie  near  the  door  of  the 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  33 

cyclone  cellar.  Some  miscreant,  one  night,  cut  off 
the  dog's  eloquent  tail.  Benjy  was  overwhelmed 
with  grief,  and  after  a  month  of  repining,  during 
which  time  a  number  of  disastrous  weather  changes 
came  unheralded,  rinding  that  he  could  no  longer  be 
of  service,  he  deliberately  committed  suicide  by  eat 
ing  a  number  of  railway  restaurant  sandwiches." 

"  Hem  !  I—" 

Dr.  Binninger  was  visibly  expanding  beneath  the 
smiles  of  perverse  Miss  Ann,  and  seemed  anxious 
again  to  claim  the  attention  of  the  company,  but, 
rising  hastily,  Mrs.  Langdon  led  the  ladies  from  the 
room. 

She  left  behind  one  honest  young  heart  clouded 
by  profound  gloom.  She  was  followed  by  one  young 
woman,  already  repentant  of  her  cruelty,  but  re 
solved  to  continue  it  forever.  For  such,  alas  !  is  the 
nature  of  the  sex  miscalled,  with  fine  irony,  "the 
gentle," 


CHAPTER  III. 

LOVE   WILL   FIND    A    WAY  ?      NO  ;    INGENUITY  ! 

"  WHEN  I  was  with  Jameson  at  Krugersdorp — " 
began  the  returned  miner — 

"  Sh-h  !  Not  now!"  whispered  John  Eckels, 
hastily.  "  You  were  to  tell  that  story  Ladies'  Night 
for  Harry  Porter's  girl,  and  now  the  engagement  is 
broken.  The  devil  alone  knows  what's  the  matter, 
and  I'm  going  to  find  out." 

Probably  Eckels  didn't  mean  to  imply  that  he  was 
deep  in  Satan's  confidence  ;  for  presently  he  had 
manoeuvred  Harry  into  a  dark  and  quiet  corner  of 
the  big  meeting-room  of  the  Travelers'  Club,  and 
was  asking  how  it  all  came  about. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know,  John,  and  I  don't  much  care," 
said  Harry,  wearily.  I  suppose  I,  like  an  ass,  was 
angry  because  she  flirted  with  old  Binninger,  and 
then  she  said  she  was  afraid  she'd  made  a  mistake  ; 
that  she  never  could  admire  mere  muscle,  but  pre 
ferred  the  society  of  men  of  intellect.  Oh,  hang  it 
all  |  You  know." 

" She  must  think  a  great  deal  of  you  ! "  said 
Eckels. 

34 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  35 

"  Hell,  yes  !  heaps  !  "  said  Harry,  sardonically. 

"  Oh,  yes  she  does  !     You  don't  know  women. 
Nobody  does,   least  of  all    themselves.     I  think  I 
know  'em,  but  it's  only  because  I'm  a  bachelor  and 
never  had  any  sisters.     Oh,  yes,  she's  utterly  miser 
able,  and  fully  persuaded  she's  happy  and  sure  she  . 
doesn't  care  for  you,  yet  cherishes,  all  the  while,  a  ' 
sneaking  expectation  that  you'll  be  suing  for  par 
don—" 

"  But  she's  wholly  in  the  wrong." 

"  My  God  !  Is  it  so  bad  as  that !  Poor  devil ! 
Then  she'll  never  forgive  you — never  until,  that  is. 
Strange  creatures,  yes.  Every  girl  believes  most  of 
the  married  women  she  knows  are  unhappy,  yet  she 
is  anxious  to  try  the  experiment  herself,  and  thinks 
she  isn't.  The  girl  that  promises  to  be  a  sister  to 
you  will  be  mad  as  thunder  if  you  make  love  to  an 
other  girl.  You  might  try  that.  No  ?  Couldn't  ? 
Well,  well  ;  don't  worry  because  she's  refused  to 
marry  you  ;  that  shows  she  intends  to  do  it.  You 
reason  by  contraries,  you  know.  A  woman  can  al 
ways  forgive  a  big  offense  easier  than  none  at  all. 
You  must  insult  her,  boy  ;  scorn  her  ;  make  her 
keep  thinking  of  you,  no  matter  how  huffy  she  gets. 
Measured  by  woman's  scale,  a  quarrel  and  a  kiss 
average  up  better  than  indifference.  Women  are 


36  THE   BOOK   OF   LIES. 

heroic  in  crises.  A  woman  will  scream  at  a  mouse, 
and  spank  a  tiger  with  her  broomstick.  Women 
may  average  no  higher  than  men  in  a  general  round 
up  of  all  the  virtues  ;  but  they're  so  strong  where 
we're  so  weak  that  we  think  'em  angels.  And  by 
George,  they  are  !  " 

11  Didn't  know  you  were  so  enthusiastic  about  the 
sex,  Eckels.  Isn't  usual  in  an  old  bachelor  like  you." 

"  Old  ?  Me  ?  Why,  you  libelous  young  babe- 
in-arms,  you're  twenty-six  yourself — all  of  you  ex 
cept  your  intellect — and  I'm  only*  thirty-five.  I 
suppose  you  think  I'm  a  sort  of  Methuselah  because 
I'm  not  fat,  but  you  wait !  When  you're  purring 
round  at  fifty  years  and  250  pounds,  I'll  still  be  as 
slender  and  graceful  as  a  gay  gazelle.  No  ;  I'm  a 
bachelor  all  right.  I've  had  a  hard  fight  against  the 
world,  but  things  are  coming  my  way  now,  and  I 
don't  mind  confessing  that  I  am  thinking  about  be 
ing  your  brother-in-law." 

"The  flaming  locks  have  fired  your  old  heart, 
eh  ?  Congratulations  in  order  ?" 

"  Well,  not  just  yet.  It  will  never  do  to  appear 
in  too  much  of  a  hurry  to  close  the  bargain.  Keep 
'em  guessing  is  my  way — in  theory,  you  know,  in 
theory.  Since  you're  to  be  my  brother-in-law,  I 
don't  mind  helping  you  out  a  bit.  You  ought  to 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  37 

shine  more  in  conversation.  Beat  old  Binninger  at 
his  own  game.  Confound  a  widower,  anyhow ! 
Practice  some  anecdotes  beforehand  and  tell  'em 
with  aplomb.  Don't  talk  to  her,  but  at  her.  Let 
her  see  that  others  admire  you,  and  she'll  be  proud 
of  you." 

"  You're  a  good  fellow,  Eckels,"  said  Harry, 
cheered  in  spite  of  himself  by  the  other's  nonsense, 
"but  I  can't  remember  a  story,  and  wouldn't  have 
cheek  enough  to  tell  it  right  if  I  did." 

"  Well,  practice  a  few  easy  ones.  Here,  I'll  give 
you  some  of  mine.  There's  a  pretty  good  tale  about 
a  wonderful  surgical  operation — the  implanting  of 
a  conscience  into  a  traveling  soap  agent,  you  know. 
Let's  see  :  The  operation  which  was  performed  at 
the  Johns  Hopkins  Medical  School  in  Dahlonega, 
involved  a  dissection  of  a  lesion  in  the  anterior  med 
ullary  surface  of  the  unfortunate  man's  pineal  gland, 
and  was  so  successful  that  the  man,  upon  recovery, 
became  utterly  unfit  for  his  former  business,  and 
has  had  to  embark  upon  newspaper  work.  That's 
only  the  outline,  you  know  ;  work  up  the  ghastly 
details  in  the  dissecting  room.  Make  'em  shiver. 
Or — hold  on — here's  a  better  one  :  A  serious  dimi 
nution  of  Western  Union  Telegraph  tolls  is  one  re 
sult  of  the  establishment  of  Pete  Porter's  bicycle 


38  THE   BOOK   OF   LIES. 

hen  express  between  Alameda  and  Oakland — that's 
the  way  you  want  to  tell  it.  Work  in  the  long  sen 
tences  just  as  easy  as  if  they  came  natural  to  you. 


The  towns  are  practically  conterminous,  but  scatter 
over  a  wide  area.  Porter  has  a  number  of  very  in 
telligent  hens  trained  to  their  work,  for  whom  he 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  39 

has  fitted  up  small  safety  bicycles,  scarcely  more 
than  toys,  weighing  about  a  half  pound  each.  Seated 
firmly  astride  of  her  bike,  a  hen  will,  by  combining 
a  vigorous  flapping  of  her  wings  with  strong  pedal 
ing*  §et  UP  very  rapid  motion  on  the  level.  On 
down  grades  the  movement  is  a  combination  of  ped 
aling  and  flying.  The  towns  are  districted,  and  each 
hen  is  domesticated  in  its  own  district,  to  which  it 
will  return  with  the  utmost  speed,  bearing  whatever 
message  may  be  intrusted  to  it,  which  can  then  be 
delivered  within  the  district  by  hand.  One  of  the 
bicycle  hens  thinks  nothing,  when  hurrying,  of  mak 
ing  seven  miles  in  about  five  minutes,  thirty-seven 
seconds.  Never  let  a  lie  come  out  in  exact  figures, 
Harry." 

"Now,  see  here,  Eckels,  what's  the  use  of  talking 
nonsense  ?  I  can't  remember  such  a  string  of  lingo 
as  that.  Try  me  on  some  easy  ones,  and  I'll  tell 
Goldilocks  you're  a  capital  fellow." 

"  For  God's  sake,  don't  !  Hint  to  her  that  there 
is  a  sad  mystery  in  my  past  that  has  blighted  ten 
of  the  best  years  of  my  life.  Tell  her  you've  heard 
I'm  the  victim  of  deep-rooted  sorrow  for  a  woman 
unworthy  of  me.  But  don't  call  me  a  good  fellow!  " 

"See  here,  Eckels,  get  down  to  the  lies." 

"All  right.     Here's  a  pencil.     Now  take  notes. 


40  THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 

That's  a  pretty  fair  lie  -about  a  gang  of  laborers, 
near  Nashville,  Tennessee,  repairing  a  bridge,  when  a 
black  and  sprawling  object  loomed  suddenly  in  the 
sky  and  plumped  down  into  the  water  before  their 
eyes.  Presently  a  man's  head  rose  to  the  surface. 
They  pulled  the  stranger  out,  when,  puffing  and 
blowing  the  water  from  his  mouth,  he  said  :  *  Morn 
ing,  gents  !  Rather  breezy  to-day.  Will  any  of  ye 
be  kind  enough  to  tell  me  how  fur  I  am  from  Kan 
sas  ?'  '  Cyclone  ? '  inquired  a  workman.  '  Oh,  no  ; 
not  a  cyclone,  exactly  ;  lived  in  Kansas  ten  year 
and  never  saw  a  cyclone  ;  just  a  bit  of  high  wind.' 
"  Here's  another:  A  man  in  Manitowetiwockela- 
gunticookisametic — oh,  any  old  name  will  do  for 
Maine  ;  take  a  day  off  to  put  in  more  syllables — 
has  a  tame  seal,  whose  intellect  has  been  developed 
to  a  remarkable  extent.  The  seal's  owner  is  a  salt 
water  fisherman,  and  always  carries  the  pet  with  him 
in  his  little  schooner.  Arrived  upon  the  fishing- 
grounds,  the  seal  slides  overboard,  and,  guided  by 
unerring  instinct,  locates  the  schools  of  fish  and 
leads  its  master  to  them  by  coming  to  the  surface, 
slapping  the  water  with  its  tail  and  emitting  short, 
sharp  barks  of  joy.  When  the  fisherman  has  secured 
a  load,  he  heaves  to  and  blows  a  big  dinner  horn, 
and  the  seal  comes  aboard  for  its  rations  of  bread 


THE   BOOK   OF   LIES.  41 

and  milk.  Then  it  curls  up  by  its  master's  side,  and 
goes  to  sleep  in  perfect  contentment. 

"Something  like  that  is  the  story  about  the 
smuggling  steer.  Put  it  down  like  this  :  On  the 
Ohio  side  of  Lake  Erie,  at  its  widest  point,  is  a  de 
serted  strip  of  shore  untended  by  the  Custom-house 
men,  where,  until  the  trick  was  recently  detected,  a 
very  curious  fraud  upon  the  revenue  was  carried 
on  by  Andy  Bogart  and  his  trained  steer.  It  was 
Andy's  custom  to  go  over  to  Canada,  buy  a  lot  of 
likely  young  cattle,  and  drive  them  with  his  steer 
to  the  lake  edge,  when  the  steer  would  swim 
across  the  lake,  leading  his  convoy  over.  The  ruse 
was  discovered  by  accident,  through  a  lake  skip 
per  running  upon  a  fine  herd  in  transit.  At  first 
he  thought  it  a  shoal  of  new-fangled  horned  por 
poises,  but  when  he  discovered  the  truth  he  gave 
information  to  the  officials  at  Cleveland.  You 
could  put  some  very  fine  descriptive  touches  into 
that." 

"No,  I  couldn't  either  Jack,  and  you  know  it. 
I  could  learn  it  like  a  recitation,  but  I  get  so  blamed 
red  in  the  face." 

"I-  see.  Got  to  have  'em  shorter.  Kind  of 
thrown  off  careless,  like.  Try  a  highly  condensed 
lie,  delivered  in  a  bored  and  languid  tone.  This 


42  THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 

way  :  '  Ya-as,  like  the  gas  tree — aw — down  West 
Virginia,  you  know  ;  soil  so — aw — impregnated  with 
gas  they  set  fire  to  trees,  and — aw — light  up  sur 
rounding  scenery — aw — so  that  bees  can  work  all 
summer  twenty-four  hours  a  day,  preparing  for  the 
night  that  never — aw — comes.'  There's  a  good  short 
lie  about  rats  in  the  mines  stealing  the  miners'  lamp 
oil  by  dipping  their  tails  in  it  and  licking  them. 
Let's  see  ;  how  did  they  unscrew  the  cover  ?  Oh,  I 
remember:  the  biggest  rat  grabbed  it  in  his  teeth 
and  the  others  took  his  legs  and  swung  him  round 
like  a  capstan  bar — see — till  the  cover  came  off. 
Story  of  a  naughty  dog  locked  in  house  ;  gets  um 
brella  ;  goes  up  to  roof  ;  holds  handle  in  mouth  ; 
jumps  off ;  parachute  descent  and  consequent  for 
giveness.  Story  of— 

"  Hold  on  !  Hold  on  !  "  cried  Harry.  Eckels 
was  gesticulating  rapidly,  his  thin  face  having  passed 
from  half  jest  to  wholly  earnest. 

"I  shouldn't  wonder,  though,"  said  Eckels,  "  if 
aphorisms  were  more  in  your  line.  A  touch  of  cyn 
icism  goes  well  with  women  ;  makes  'em  think  you're 
a  sad  dog  and  have  lived  and  suffered  ;  then  they 
want  to  comfort  you  and  make  your  paths  all  peace; 
only  they  wouldn't  be,  you  know.  Something  like 
this  :  '  One's  enemies  pity  him  when  he  fails  ;  his 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  43 

friends  blame  him  ;  his  family  forgives  him  after 
many  years.'  ' 

"  I  could  do  that  better,"  said  Harry,  judicially. 
1  'It's  shorter,  and  any  fool  thing  seems  to  answer 
for  an  aphorism.  If  a  dollar  bill  is  the  square  root 
of  all  evil,  a  gold  brick  is  its  cube  root.  If  wishes 
were  horses,  and  were  also  father  to  the  thought, 
then  the  thought  would  be  a  colt.  Mountains  have 
to  keep  pretty  still  because  they  are  confined  in 
mountain  chains.  A  fiddle  is  masculine  because 
the  most  successful  appeal  is  always  made  to  its 
stomach." 

"  Oh,  you  young  idiot !  You'd  spoil  it  all.  You 
should  be  the  cynic,  not  the  clown,  to  impress 
women,  especially  a  goose  of  a  girl.  I  give  you  up. 
No,  by  Jove  !  I  have  it !"  said  Eckels,  jumping  to 
his  feet.  "  Will  you  trust  yourself  absolutely  to 
me,  upon  a  positive  guarantee  that  my  plan  will 
restore  you  to  happiness  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I'll  do  that.  Probably  your  scheme  is  a 
foolish  one,  but  in  Jove  the  most  foolish  thing  is 
wisest." 

"  Good  boy  !  That  was  an  aphorism  worthy  of 
one  whose  name  modesty  forbids  me  to  utter.  Talk 
like  that — but  not  to  your  dear  one — to  other 
women.  For  my  first  command  is  that  you  make 


44  THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 

no  effort  to  see  or  speak  to  Ann  Copeland  until  I 
give  you  leave,  save  the  most  ordinary  courtesies 
when  you  meet  by  accident.  Mind,  now  ;  not  one 
word  about  love  or  sentiment,  and  appear  as  jolly  as 
a  lark.  Trust  me.  I'll  see  you  through  all  right." 


CHAPTER  IV. 

LOVE    LAUGHS   AT   LIES. 

ECKELS  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  Parker 
Adams  at  his  boarding-house,  and  had  secured  his 
election  as  a  member  of  the  Travelers'  Club,  on  the 
representation  that  Adams  was  himself  something 
of  a  concocter  of  travelers'  tales. 

A  burst  of  laughter  from  the  group  at  the  fireside 
proved  that  Adams  was  triumphantly  standing  his 
initiation.  As  Eckels  and  Harry  Porter  neared  the 
group,  he  was  talking  about  chickens. 

"The  hen,"  said  the  pudgy  little  fellow,  on  whose 
bearded  face  rested  a  look  of  deep  gravity,  "has 
wonderful  vitality,  and  is  for  this  reason  capable 
of  undergoing  strange  surgical  experiments.  At  the 
boarding-house  where  Eckels  and  I  are  staying,  we 
have  an  especial  breed  of  four-legged  chickens  from 
the  farm  of  Ex-Gov.  McCarty,  of  New  Jersey,  who 
is  an  enthusiastic  fancier.  The  first  quadrupedal 
chick  McCarty  ever  developed,  by  grafting  the  ad 
ditional  members,  is  alive  yet,  and  is  a  methodical 
old  bird.  It  uses  only  one  pair  of  legs  at  a  time, 
curling  the  spare  set  up  under  its  body  like  a  stork. 
Every  half  hour  this  rooster  changes  legs,  and  such 
45 


46  THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 

is  the  unerring  accuracy  with  which  this  operation  is 
timed  that  the  crew  on  an  accommodation  train, 
which  stops  at  a  station  near  by,  are  accustomed  to 
set  their  watches  by  the  four- legged  fowl's  change- 
off. 

"  I  have  a  friend  in  Rome,  Georgia,"  Adams  went 
on,  "who  conceived  an   idea  fraught  with  woe  to 
his  snake  neighbors.     He  selected  for   the  experi 
ment  a  chick  that  had  been  half  swallowed  by  a 
snake  when  very  young,  and  had  lost  one  leg  in  the 
melee.     For  this  valuable  fowl  my  friend  rigged  up 
a  wooden  leg.     Ever  since  then  the  bird  has  taken 
revenge  on  snakedom.  Its  method,  when  it  sees  one 
of    its    enemies,  is    to    advance    the    wooden    leg 
cautiously.     The  snake  bites  into  it,  and  is   unable 
to  release  its  fangs  before  the  chicken  picks  its  eyes 
out.     The  rest  is  easy.     The  wooden  leg  has  to  be 
renewed  twice  a  week,  it  gets  splintered  up  so  badly. 
"  Another  instance  of  the  vitality  of  the  hen," 
continued  the  new  member,  "was  brought  to  my 
notice  while  I  was  fishing  in  Maine  last  year.     A 
farmer,  one  year  previously,  had  accidentally  over 
turned  a  water-bucket,  imprisoning  a  hen  beneath 
it.     A  lot  of  hay  was  subsequently  piled   upon  the 
pail,  as  the  barn  was  filled,  and  it  was  only  removed 
a  year  later.     As  the  hired  man  lifted  the  pail,  the 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  47 

hen  ran  away,  rather  groggily,  but  defiant,  sounding 
her  alarm.  She  had  not  been  idle  during  her  long 
imprisonment  without  food  or  air,  but  had  laid  nearly 
a  bushel  and  a  half  of  eggs,  the  sort  known  as 
'  Stage  Elevator  Ds.'  " 

"A  most  interesting  occurrence ! "  said  Tom 
Fenton,  his  keen  black  eyes  sparkling.  "  I  think 
that  we  have  reason  to  congratulate  ourselves  upon 
our  new  member.  He  will  be  an  honor  to  the  Liars' 
Club,  to  give  our  organization  its  popular  name.  I 
will  now,  with  your  permission,  relate  two  or  three 
little  instances  which  go  to  prove  alike  the  folly  and 
the  faithful  devotion  of  hens  to  their  duty.  One  case 
is  that  of  Harry  Tyrwhitt,  a  shrewd  farmer  of  Acco- 
mac,  Maryland.  This  gentleman,  in  order  to  induce 
greater  activity  of  laying  among  his  120  hens,  has 
formed  a  championship  club  league  of  twelve  clubs, 
each  club  containing  ten  hens.  Match  lays  are  laid 
by  the  clubs,  two  by  two  in  rotation,  and  the  score 
of  each  club,  from  the  first  to  the  last  day  of  the  sea 
son,  is  kept  with  the  utmost  accuracy.  Under  the 
wholesome  spur  of  emulation  there  are  never  any 
goose  eggs. 

"  Of  course,  the  strain  of  this  competition  is  tough 
on  the  hens,  but  nothing  like  so  cruel,  after  all,  as 
the  course  pursued  by  a  hen-farmer  I  used  to  know 


48  THE  BOOK   OF  LIES. 

in  Scanderby,  Michigan.  In  spite  of  the  hard  times, 
this  man  has  been  gaining  wealth  so  rapidly  by  the 
sale  of  an  enormous  number  of  eggs,  without  any 
visible  supply  of  hens  to  account  for  them,  as  to  sug 
gest  to  his  neighbors  the  idea  of  witchcraft.  A  com 
mittee  visited  his  barn  one  rainy  night,  and  there 
discovered  that  he  had  built  a  dark  room,  wherein 
were  impounded  twenty-six  weary,  pallid  hens.  The 
walls  were  painted  to  imitate  green  fields  and  run 
ning  brooks.  A  powerful  electric  light  shone  for 
half  an  hour,  and  then  for  an  equal  time  all  was 
dark.  The  hens  under  this  treatment  had  lost  their 
reckoning,  and  were  producing  each  twenty-four 
eggs  per  day." 

"I  must  take  issue  with  you,  however,  on  the 
subject  of  the  hen's  intellect,"  said  the  new  mem 
ber,  stroking  his  short,  pointed  beard.  "Probably  you 
know  that  in  Ashaway,  Rhode  Island,  reside  a  great 
number  of  Seventh-day  Baptists,  who  are  all  very 
good  people  and  religious  almost  to  a  fault.  Among 
their  other  peculiarities  is  the  possession  of  a  special 
breed  of  hens,  carefully  trained  to  lay  eggs  every 
day  of  the  week  but  Saturday.  One  of  these  hens 
was  recently  sold  to  a  new  owner  in  Chepachet, 
whose  other  fowl  were  irreligiously  accustomed  to 
lay  eggs  on  all  days  of  the  week.  The  new-comer, 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  49 

upon  fully  realizing  the  character  of  her  associates, 
began  destroying  the  works  of  the  devil,  by  breaking 
with  her  beak  every  egg  laid  on  Saturday.  This 
practice  soon  rendered  the  pious  hen  so  unpopular 
with  the  farmer's  wife  that  she  met  the  fate  of  a  true 
reformer,  and  lost  her  head.  You  will  hardly  dis 
pute  the  statement  that  this  hen  proved  herself  the 
possessor  of  a  high  order  of  intellect,  as  well  as  a 
thoroughly  developed  moral  sense." 

"  To  be  beautiful  is  the  most  useful  thing  a  woman 
can  accomplish,"  said  Harry  Porter,  unconsciously 
speaking  aloud  an  aphorism  he  had  been  busily 
concocting  for  the  past  hour  or  so.  Then,  catching 
the  wondering  looks  of  his  companions,  he  was  silent 
again. 

"  Hem  !  As  the  subject  has  been  somewhat 
abruptly  changed  by  our  young  friend,"  said  Dr. 
Binninger,  "  I  think  I  will  tell  of  a  peculiarity  of 
Southwestern  Missouri.  The  soil  of  that  section,  as 
you  doubtless  know,  is  so  strongly  impregnated  with 
iron  that  it  produces  a  peculiar  effect  upon  pigs.  It 
doesn't  injuriously  attack  their  hoofs,  but  turns 
their  nostrils  into  iron,  so  that  double-barreled 
Fourth  of  July  salutes  can  be  fired  from  them  with 
out  inconvenience  to  the  pig. 

"  My  very  good   friend   Boanerges  Smith,  with 


5O  THE   BOOK  OF  LIES. 

whom  I  was  once  staying,  had  a  pig  whose  tail  he 
had  neglected  to  cut  off,  according  to  the  usual  cus 
tom  of  the  country.  In  time  the  iron  of  the  soil 
collected  upon  the  pig's  tail  in  a  hard  and  heavy 
mass,  which  could  not  be  got  off  except  by  smelting, 
and  that  painful  process  would  have  scorched  the 
pig's  coat  tails.  The  constant  strain  on  the  animal's 
eyes,  due  to  its  inability  to  wink  because  of  the 
weight  of  the  tail  drawing  its  skin  back,  produced 
partial  blindness.  Smith  provided  a  pair  of  blue 
spectacles  and  endeavored  to  induce  the  pig  to  wear 
them,  but  the  maddened  animal  would  insist  on  paw 
ing  them  off. 

"  At  last  my  friend  resolved  to  do  that  which  he 
should  have  done  at  first,  and  cut  off  the  animal's 
tail.  But  it  was  too  late.  The  pig,  relieved  from 
the  load  which  had  so  long  cumbered  it,  testified  to 
its  joy  by  capering  about.  But  a  new  difficulty 
arose.  The  hind  legs,  by  carrying  such  a  weight, 
had  grown  so  much  stronger  than  the  fore  legs,  and 
outran  them  so  far  and  fast,  that  the  pig  went  round 
and  round  in  a  narrowing  circle." 

.Here  Dr.  Binninger  paused,  and  began  leisurely 
puffing  at  his  cigar. 

"  But  what  became  of  the  pig  ?  "  asked  Porter. 

"  If  the  club  will  excuse  me,  I'd  rather  not  tell. 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  5 1 

It  seems  to  me  that  even  the  uncompleted  narrative 
has  a  certain  modicum  of  scientific  interest,"  said 
the  doctor,  and  to  all  urging  he  remained  obdurate. 

"  The  voracious  appetite  of  pigs  is  one  of  the  most 
wonderful  of  their  many  admirable  qualities,"  said 
Fenton,  after  a  pause.  "  Sometimes  this  gets  a  pig 
into  trouble.  It  was  in  Osgood,  Indiana,  that  Killian 
Dopp's  pig  got  into  a  hardware  store  and  ate  a  lot 
of  nitro-glycerine.  Happening  afterward  into  Raw's 
livery  a  horse  kicked  poor  piggy.  The  stable 
was  only  slightly  damaged,  but  the  pig  was  blown  to 
fragments,  and  some  of  its  bristles  were  driven 
through  a  three-inch  oak  plank  ;  and  the  atmosphere 
for  miles  around  was  so  greased  with  lard  that  it 
slipped  into  a  cyclone.  In  the  South  I  used  to  see 
sometimes  a  racing  pig  belonging  to  Bud  Davis,  of 
Mobile.  It  is  an  eighth  wonder.  This  pig,  which 
is  kept  lean  and  in  good  condition  by  a  diet  of  pick 
led  olives  and  lean  beef,  with  celery  and  coleslaw  as 
side  dishes,  will  drag  a  tiny  sulky  at  a  2.40  pace. 
The  only  difficulty  with  him  is  that  whenever  you 
wish  him  to  go  east  you  have  to  start  him  north 
west  by  the  compass." 

"  In  the  face  of  such  instances,  what  a  mockery  is 
the  fancied  superiority  of  man  ! "  mused  Eckels. 
"A  man  has  little  eyes  to  see  with,  middle-sized 


52  THE   BOOK  OF  LIES. 

arms  to  work  with,  and  great  big  legs  to  gad  about 
on.  He  gets  most  honor  when  he  is  least  a  man  ; 
when  he  has  become  short-sighted,  fat,  scant  of 
breath,  bald,  timid,  feeble  and  a  fool.  I  like  better 
to  think  of  primal  man,  of  the  Aborigine.  Such 
thoughts  were  forcibly  borne  in  upon  me  by  the 
recent  discovery,  in  Bucyrus,  Ohio,  of  a  tomahawk 
buried  deep  in  the  heart  of  a  giant  tree.  This  imple 
ment  differs  in  form  from  any  now  known,  and  has 
deeply  graven  in  its  handle  *  H.  to  M.,  B.  c.  1317.' 
It  is  supposed  to  have  been  given  in  the  year  named 
by  Hiawatha  to  Minnehaha,  upon  whose  fair  young 
life  the  gift  of  an  edge  tool  naturally  cast  the  dark 
shadow  of  an  unappeasable  hoodoo." 

"A  curiously  similar  incident,"  said  the  new  mem 
ber,  "  recently  came  to  light  in  a  Virginia  forest,  when 
a  very  large  tree  was  cut  down,  near  the  heart  of 
which  was  found  a  lock  of  hair,  or  rather  two,  inter 
twined,  of  darker  and  lighter  meshes.  By  carefully 
splitting  the  wood,  the  initials  *  I.  S.'  and  *  P.  P.' 
were  discovered,  faintly  legible,  in  what  must  have 
been  the  bark  several  hundred  years  ago.  By  care 
fully  counting  the  rings  which  covered  the  initials, 
they  were  found  to  support  the  theory  that  the  mys 
tic  letters  stand  for  *  I-o-h-n,'  or  John  Smith,'  and 
*  Pocahontas  Powhatan/  whose  locks  of  hair  had  been, 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  53 

in  some  romantic  mood,  intrusted  to  the  keeping  of 
the  cleft  bark.  Smith,  you  know,  was  one  of  these 
light-complected  cusses,  and  Miss  Powhatan  was, 
of  course,  an  equally  pronounced  brunette." 

"The  starry  heavens  and  the  mind  of  man,"  re 
sumed  Eckels,  "  won  Kant's  wonder.  But  Kant  was 
a  man.  I,  myself,  most  admire  animals  when  they 
imitate  the  ingenuity  of  man,  and  become  thereby 
less  like  their  own  noble  simplicity.  I  was  once, 
while  in  Central  Africa  with  de  Brazza,  immensely 
amused -by  seeing,  near  the  Congo,  a  party  of  mon 
keys  listening  to  a  simian  visitor  with  a  brass  collar, 
evidently  an  escaped  pet.  Presently  all  sprang  up 
and,  chattering  about  the  explanation,  began  to  play 
'keeping  store.'  The  other  monkeys  brought  bana 
nas  and  cocoanuts  to  the  brass-collared  one,  who 
gravely  paid  for  each  purchase  with  a  pebble.  Then 
the  monkeys  wished  to  buy  their  goods  back  for  the 
same  pebbles.  The  ringed  monkey  had  failed,  or 
the  money  was  no  longer  legal  tender.  At  any  rate 
the  refund  was  refused.  There  was  a  whispered 
consultation,  and  the  merchant,  all  at  once,  found 
himself  kicking  at  the  end  of  a  Molopea  Kalostoma 
vine  thrust  through  his  collar.  It  was  a  first  rate 
example  of  the  rude  justice  of  lynch  law." 

"  The  fact  that  even  insects  are  not  altogether 


54  THE   BOOK   OF   LIES. 

without  rules  of  concerted  action,"  said  Dr.  Binnin- 
ger,  "  has  been  noted  by  Lubbock  and  other  scien 
tific  observers.  The  other  evening  in  Waycross, 
Georgia,  along  line  of  lights  was  seen  flying  across 
a  low,  swampy  piece  of  ground.  Some  curious  ob 
servers  drew  quietly  near,  and  saw  that  it  was  a  pro 
cession  of  lightning-bugs,  proceeding  in  orderly 
fashion  by  fours  front,  and  with  the  proper  interval. 
Their  combined  light  was  sufficient  to  make  their 
motions  perfectly  visible.  After  passing  through 
all  the  principal  streets  of  the  swamp,  the  procession 
halted  in  a  clump  of  alder  bushes,  where  a  commit 
tee  was  hard  at  work  preparing  a  collation.  A  giant 
lightning-bug  sat  on  a  mullen  leaf,  and  as  'each  pla 
toon  passed  him  the  paraders  flashed  their  lights 
three  times  in  quick  succession  as  a  salute,  the  big 
lightning-bug  flashing  once  in  reply.  After  all  had 
passed  the  collation  of  sorrel  leaves  was  served.  It 
was  the  opinion  of  the  observers  that  the  lightning- 
bugs  were  holding  a  ratification  meeting  in  honor  of 
their  ruler  for  the  season." 

"  A  friend  of  mine  in  Colorado,  a  member  of  a 
local  club,  vouches  for  the  truth  of  this  incident," 
continued  the  Doctor.  u  Two  hunters,  coming  to 
the  edge  of  a  glade,  saw  sixty-five  bears  in  consulta 
tion.  One  was  lying  bound  with  grapevines,  two 


56  THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 

were  watching  over  him,  and  another,  a  big  fellow, 
was  making  a  speech.  Presently  the  big  bear  stop 
ped  talking,  and  all  the  sixty-three  growled  an  as 
sent.  It  sounded,  my  friend  writes,  like  the  mutter 
ing  of  distant  thunder.  The  last  sad  act  soon 
followed.  Some  of  the  bears  threw  a  grapevine- 
loop  about  the  erring  bear's  neck,  led  him  to  a  limb, 
threw  the  vine  over  it,  and  six  big  bears  walked 
away  with  it.  In  ten  minutes  the  bear  was  dead, 
and  the  others  went  solemnly  away.  The  hunters 
secured  the  lynched  bear's  skin  without  a  bullet-hole 
in  it,  by  way  of  proof." 

"  Was  it  ever  known  what  the  bear's  offense  was  ?" 
queried  Fenton,  who  stood  in  his  favorite  attitude, 
both  hands  in  his  trousers-pockets,  and  his  head 
thrown  well  back. 

"  No,  but  it  is  supposed  that  the  erring  bear  had 
ventured  the  hasty  opinion  that  honey  belonged  to 
the  bees  who  made  it — an  opinion,  as  all  must  per 
ceive,  utterly  subversive  of  morality  and  good  gov 
ernment." 

"  The  cat,"  said  Eckels,  "  though  seldom  imita 
tive  of  man,  or  influenced  by  devotion  to  him,  often 
evinces  reasoning  faculties  of  a  high  order.  Yet, 
however  far  toward  reason,  the  instinct  of  cats  may 
carry  them,  there  is  apt  to  be  a  flaw  in  the  chain 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  57 

when  they  endeavor  to  measure  and  forecast  the 
probable  actions  of  human  beings.  Like  the  cat  in 
Biddeford,  Maine,  whose  owners  recently  removed 
from  one  house  to  another  more  commodious. 
Kitty  was  ill  at  ease,  because  she  loved  the  old 
home,  but  no  one  attributed  to  her  two  or  three 
mysterious  fires  which  occurred  in  the  new  house, 
and  were  successively  extinguished,  until  one  day 
she  was  seen  to  leap  upon  the  kitchen  table,  stretch 
up,  and  take  a  match  from  the  tin  match-box  on  the 
wall,  and  sneak  away  with  it.  She  was  followed, 
and  carefully  watched,  so  as  not  to  excite  her  sus 
picion.  First,  she  prepared  a  soft  wad  of  old  news 
papers  under  the  cellar  stairs;  she  rubbed  the  match 
on  the  cement  floor  until  it  was  in  flames.  Care 
fully  pussy  touched  it  to  the  paper,  and  the  bright 
flames  shot  up,  only  to  be  again  extinguished. 
Pussy  was,  after  this  exploit,  killed,  but  with  many 
regrets,  for  the  family  realized  that  her  act  was  not 
malicious,  but  was  intended  merely  to  force  them 
back  into  their  old  home  by  destroying  the  new." 

"•I  think/'  said  Dr.  Binninger,  "  that  the  time  has 
come  to  retire,  for  me,  at  least;  and  I,  therefore, 
wish  you,  gentlemen,  a  very  good  night." 

As  the  big  doctor  was  leaving  the  room,  the  new 
waiter,  Henry,  nervously  touched  his  arm.  Henry 


58  /THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 

was  a  light  mulatto,  with  a  very  earnest  face,  now 
tense  with  excitement.  As  the  other  members,  one 
by  one,  drifted  out  of  the  room,  he  said  :  "  'Scuse 
me,  suh,  but  would  yo*  be  kin'  enough  to  tell  me, 
sun,  wut  become  ob  de  ossifer  pig  ?  " 

"  The  ossified  pig  ?  Certainly,  George,  certainly. 
I  am  always  glad  to  see  one  in  your  station  of  life 
eager  to  absorb  scientific  knowledge.  I  may  say 
that  I  refrained  from  concluding  the  tale  in  open 
meeting,  only  because  I  feared  that  some  of  the 
members  might  assume  an  expression  of  incredulity; 
and  that,  as  you  know,  a  Southern  gentleman  of  the 
old  school  could  not  tamely  endure.  The  ossified 
pig,  you'll  remember,  Charles,  was  left  whirling 
about  in  its  joy  at  its  release  from  an  incumbrance, 
and  rotating  more  rapidly  because  of  the  greater 
strength  of  its  hind  legs  outrunning  the  fore  legs. 
Faster  it  sped;  .smaller  grew  the  circuit  of  its  revo 
lution.  Presently  blue  smoke  began  to  arise  from 
the  no  longer  distinguishable  mass  of  revolving 
flesh.  Centripetal  attraction  was  proving  too  strong. 
There  was  a  sudden  flash,  or  report,  an  exquisite 
scent  of  roasting  meat — and  the  unfortunate  pig  had 
vanished  into  thin  air." 

With  a  howl  of  anguish,  the  new  waiter  fled  from 
the  room. 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  59 

He  tore  up  the  stairs  to  a  sort  of  loft  he  inhab 
ited,  with  the  club's  other  employes,  and  began  hast 
ily  throwing  his  few  belongings  into  his  carpet-bag, 
and  as  he  worked,  he  moaned,  "  Oh,  wha'  fo'  dis 
niggah  make  sich  a  fool  quesh'rt  ?  Oh,  Lordy, 
Lordy,  don'  let  'im  git  me  !  Don'  let  'im  git  me  !  ' 

"  Wonder  what  ails  that  boy^!  "  thought  Dr.  Bm- 
ninger,  as  he  slowly  left  the  room. 


CHAPTER  V. 

IN     WHICH    A    VISITOR    LEARNS    SOMETHING    OF    THE 
COUNTRY. 

"  DEAH  me,  what  extwao'dinawy  cold  weather  !  " 
said  the  English  visitor,  after  he  had  been  duly 
introduced,  and  had  drawn  his  chair  close  to  the  fire. 

"  We  have,  indeed,  a  variable  climate,"  said  John 
Eckels,  "  but  you  hardly  get  a  fair  sample  here  in 
New  York;  still,  even  here,  during  the  '88  blizzard, 
a  mouse  crawled  into  my  bed  to  keep  from  freezing, 
but  wasn't  quite  quick  enough;  the  last  hind  leg 
mousie  pulled  in,  was  nipped  solid  by  the  frost.  Next 
morning  the  mouse  ran  and  crouched  over  the  reg 
ister,  and  I  then  noticed  that  it  had  been  turned  en 
tirely  white  by  its  awful  experience;  all  except  the 
frozen  leg,  which  was  black. 

"  During  the  same  frightful  storm,  a  Mrs.  Alvan 
Learby,  of  Port  Jefferson,  was  doing  her  washing. 
The  room  was,  as  is  usual  on  such  occasions,  full 
of  steam,  and  when  Mrs.  Learby 's  little  boy,  Jake, 
came  running  in,  leaving  the  door  wide  open,  the 
inrushing  cold  air  condensed  the  steam  into  snow, 
which  fell  like  an  avalanche  upon  poor  Mrs.  Learby, 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 


61 


completely  burying  her  from  sight.  But  Jake,  by  a 
desperate  effort,  succeeded  in  digging  her  out  with 
a  coal-scoop  before  death  ensued  from  suffocation." 

"  Fawncy  !  "  ejaculated  the  visitor. 

"  At  about  the  same  time,"  went  on  Eckels,  gravely, 
"  a  man  was  going  up  Broadway,  carrying  a  good- 
sized  jag — " 

"  W-W-Wait  a  minute  !  "  said  his  lordship,  stam 
mering  in  his  anxiety,  and 
tugging  a  big  notebook  out 
of  his  breast  pocket.  He 
was  an  angular  man,  with 
longish  mutton-chop  whis 
kers,  a  placid  stare,  and  a 
monocle.  Probably  under 
the  impression  that  to  wear 
a  dress  suit  would  have 
been  displaying  too  much 
solicitude  for  his  appear 
ance  in  an  assembly  likely 
to  be  uncouth  in  its  attire, 
he  wore  shabby  checks  of 
very  loud  pattern.  Jim  Hart  had  brought  him,  and 
it  was  his  first  day  in  the  country. 

When  the  noble  criticbf  our  customs  had  secured 
his  notebook  and  pencil,  he  said:  "  Mind  my  taking 


62  THE   BOOK   OF  LIES. 

notes  ?  Want  to  put  down  '  jag  means  umbwella,' 
before  I  forget  it.  How  vewy  owiginal  !  Thanks, 
my  deah  fellow  !  By  the  way,  *  jag '  does  mean 
'  umbwella,'  doesn't  it  ?  " 

"Oh,  of  course,"  said  Eckels.  "  Yes,  <  jag ' 
does  mean  something  to  keep  water  out.  I  have 
forgotten  what  I  was  about  to  say,  but  as  Mr.  Hart 
tells  me  you  are  gathering  material  for  a  book, 
I  will  tell  you  about  the  effect  extreme  cold  has  on 
some  of  our  species  of  snakes.  Doesn't  kill  'em; 
merely  renders  'em  lethargic.  Out  in  Colorado,  for 
instance,  a  Cincinnati  man  was  building  a  sawmill 
in  freezing  weather,  and  having  occasion  to  turn  out 
a  bar  five  feet  long,  ran  out  and  got  a  long  stick  for 
the  purpose.  He  cut  off  the  small  end  to  the  right 
length,  and  put  it  on  the  lathe,  when  it  began  to  thaw 
out,  and  proved  to  be  a  mighty  big  rattlesnake,  re 
cently  deprived  of  its  tail.  But  he  never  lost  his 
presence  of  mind.  Before  the  snake  could  coil  for 
a  spring,  he  plunged  it  in  a  tub  of  ice-cold  water, 
after  which  it  was  easily  despatched." 

"  Fawncy  !  "  said  the  visitor,  still  diligently  writ 
ing,  when  he  was  not  engaged  in  replacing  his  mon 
ocle  to  gaze  at  his  informant. 

" Yes,  indeed,"  said  Tom  Fenton.  "It  is  well 
known  that  snakes  are  frequently  found  in  cold 


THE.  BOOK  OF  LIES.  63 

weather,  frozen  stiff,  and  so  brittle  that  they  can  be 
broken  like  dry  sticks.  A  snake  so  broken  will  re 
join  himself  as  soon  as  warm  weather  thaws  him  out. 
Tom  Norton,  of  Altoona,  a  few  years  ago,  when  I 
was  living  there,  broke  up  several  snakes,  and  piled 
up  about  half  a  cord,  in  stove  lengths,  of  rattlers, 
moccasins,  and  garter  snakes.  A  sudden  thaw  sent 
them  hunting  up  their  lost  lengths,  which  all  suc 
ceeded  in  finding  but  two,  a  big  rattler  head,  in  the 
confusion,  joining  a  black-snake  body,  which,  of 
course,  left  nothing  for  the  black-snake  head  and 
rattler  tail  but  to  follow  the  example.  Then  followed 
a  strange  scene.  The  rattler  body  persisted  in  coil 
ing  up  for  a  spring,  when  its  black-snake  head  was 
unused  to  that  method  of  fighting,  and  the  rattler 
head  and  black-snake  body  were  equally  at  odds  ; 
so  that  neither  combination  could  harm  the  other, 
though  both  were  very  angry.  Finally  the  rattler- 
headed  combination  marched  to  the  creek  and  com 
mitted  suicide.  The  black-snake  head  would  have 
followed  the  example,  but  the  coiled  body  refused 
to  move,  and  the  composite  snake  soon  died  of  a 
broken  heart." 

"  To  meddle  with  snakes  while  in  this  lethargic 
condition  is  very  dangerous,"  said  Dr.  Binninger. 
"  In  the  Punxsutawney  Mountains  a  farmer,  named 


64  THE  BOOK   OF   LIES. 

Morris,  once  found  a  den  of  sixty-seven  rattle 
snakes,  all  rendered  torpid,  so  that  they  could  be 
handled  with  little  danger.  He  prepared  a  big  box, 
with  holes  in  the  sides  for  ventilation,  corded  the 
snakes  up  in  it,  and  with  his  ox  sled  hauled  it  to  a 
warm  place.  His  intention  was  to  sell  the  snakes 
for  museum  purposes,  but  when  they  awoke  in  their 
narrow  quarters  a  terrific  fight  ensued,  in  which 
sixty-six  of  the  snakes  were  killed,  and  the  remain 
ing  one  so  crazed  by  pain,  that  he  committed  suicide 
by  striking  his  fangs  deep  into  his  own  body." 

"  Fawncy  !  "  said  the  visitor,  still  writing. 

"  Cold  weather  produces  some  marvelous  effects 
in  states  usually  considered  warm,"  continued  the 
Southerner.  "  In  the  cattle  belt  of  Texas  a  great 
herd  gathered  upon  a  railroad  track  at  a  point  near 
Sherman,  one  very  cold  day  last  winter,  and  com 
pelled  the  engineer  of  a  freight  to  halt  for  fear  of 
being  ditched.  After  a  fierce  struggle,  during  which 
they  used  their  long  horns  on  each  other  with  telling 
effect,  the  cattle  huddled  about  the  warm  boiler  to 
protect  themselves  against  the  cold,  which  was 
severe,  until  the  fireman,  as  a  last  resort,  drew  the 
fire.  After  the  cattle  had  deserted  the  fast-cooling 
boiler  in  disgust,  he  fired  up  again,  and  the  train 
proceeded." 


THE   BOOK  OF  LIES.  65 

"  I  suppose  bears  hibernate,"  said  the  visitor, 
pausing  for  a  reply,  with  poised  pencil.  "  I  am  very 
much  interested  in  bears." 

"  Hem  !  "  said  the  doctor,  "that  bears  frequently 
hibernate  is  true.  That  they  always  do  so,  may  be 
disputed,  in  view  of  the  experience  of  my  friend, 
Maitland  Brown,  of  Athlone,  Oregon,  who  met  a  fierce 
grizzly  prowling  about  the  mountain,  on  one  of  the 
bitterest  cold  days  of  the  winter  of  '78.  The  rav 
enous  animal  would  undoubtedly  have  made  a  meal 
of  Brown,  who  was  unarmed,  had  he  not  retained 
presence  of  mind  sufficient  to  spit  deliberately,  first 
in  one  and  then  the  other  of  the  animal's  eyes.  So 
extreme  was  the  cold  that  they  instantly  froze  shut, 
and  the  poor  beast  was  like  a  blinded  Samson. 
Brown  then  threw  snow  in  the  animal's  mouth  until, 
first  melting  and  then  freezing,  the  expansive  power 
of  the  ice  pried  his  great  jaws  apart,  and  the  bear 
died  where  he  lay." 

"  Fawncy  !  Such  presence  of  mind  !  "  ejaculated 
the  visitor  in  amazement.  "  Bears  must  be  very 
dangerous  creatures,  I  judge." 

"  Troublesome  rather  than  dangerous,"  said 
Eckels,  "  as  a  rule.  I  once  knew  a  farmer  who 
suffered  severe  loss  because  of  the  desperation 
caused  among  the  animals  living  near  him  by  cold 


66 


THE  BOOK   OF   LIES1. 


weather. 


His  house  stands  in  a  lonely  spot,  and  he 
attributes  to  this  fact  his 
recent  loss  of  a  lot  of  farm 
stock.  He  had  locked 

L up  his  barn  securely,  but 

j 1    had     omitted    to    fasten 

a  second  -  story  window, 
and  during  the  night, 
three  bears  of  assorted 
sizes,  after  trying  all  the 
other  windows  and  doors, 
cast  longing  eyes  at  this. 
So  the  middle-sized  bear 
climbed  on  the  big  bear's 
back,  and  the  little  bear, 
upon  the  middle-sized  one, 
was  just  able  to  reach 
the  window  and  open  it. 
Then  he  went  down  stairs, 
unhooked  the  door,  and 
the  whole  bear  family  came 
in,  and  ate,  uninterrupted, 
veal  and  potatoes.  When 
my  friend,  the  farmer, 
came  in  the  morning  he 
noticed  that  the  bears  were 


THE   BOOK   OF   LIES.  67 

of  polite  ways,  as  they  had  used  a  number  of  empty 
grain  bags  for  napkins,  and  a  bran-mash  tub  for  a 
finger-bowl." 

"  Hem  !  "  said  Dr.  Binninger.  "The  longer -one 
lives  and  the  more  one  learns,the  better  he  realizes  the 
truth  of  the  central  idea  of  Darwinism — the  theory  of 
modification  by  use  and  environment.  Since  the  cold 
storage  method  of  preserving  eggs  began  to  be  prac 
ticed  in  New  York,  large  polar  rats,  covered  with  very 
thick  fur,  have  gradually  come  to  inhabit  the  ware 
houses,  making  a  living  by  gnawing  the  eggs.  That 
these  rats  are  not  a  special  breed,  but  a  variant  from 
the  ordinary  species,  is  highly  probable.  Certain  it  is 
that  an  ordinary  domestic  cat,  which  has  been  play 
ing  about  one  of  the  warehouses  for  some  years,  has 
become  so  inured  to  the  cold  that  she  prefers  the 
freezing  air  of  the  vaults  to  the  outer  sunshine. 
And  just  as  the  usual  cat  curls  up  to  a  grate  or 
register  in  winter,  this  extraordinary  animal,  after  a 
short  run  out-of-doors  in  summer,  will  return,  with 
every  sign  of  discomfort,  to  her  vaults,  and  cuddle 
close  to  the  genial  surface  of  a  block  of  ice.  Her 
hair  has  grown  very  thick  and  long,  and  her  appetite 
for  cold-storage  rats  is  voracious  in  the  extreme." 

'•When   I  was  with  Jameson  at  Krugersdorp — 
began  the  returned  miner — 


68  THE  BOOK   OF   LIES. 

Just  at  this  moment  a  diversion  was  created  by 
Harry  Porter  dashing  into  the  room,  with  a  queer, 
strained  expression  in  his  eyes,  and  a  generally  un 
cared-for  look. 

"  Here,  Eckels,"  he  said,  taking  no  notice  of  the 
others.  "  Can  I  speak  with  you  just  a  moment  ?  " 

"  See  here,  old  man,"  he  added,  dropping  his  voice 
as  the  two  moved  away  from  the  others,  "  I  came 
to  take  back  my  promise.  I  must  see  her  ;  I  am 
desperate." 

"  How  about  her  ? "  asked  Eckels. 

"  Oh,  her  !  She's  happy  enough,  I  guess.  Gay 
as  a  lark.  Flirting  desperately  with  fellows  that — ' 

"  Good  !"  said  Eckels.  "  The  scheme  is  working 
splendidly.  My  boy,  she  is  pining  for  you  !  Just 
you  keep  a  stiff  upper  lip,  and  trust  to  me.  I  know 
something  about  women,  I  guess.  Just  look  at^me  ! 
I'm  as  much  in  love  as  you  are,  and  going  to  be 
your  brother-in-law.  Do  you  see  me  going  around 
with  my  necktie  on  crooked  and  a  *  who-kicked-me  ? ' 
look  in  my  beautiful  brown  eyes  ?  Not  much  !  I'm 
here  listening  to  yarns  and  letting  her  do  the  worry 
ing.  By  the  way,  Hart  brought  in  an  English  lord 
or  something,  and  they're  giving  him  points  for  his 
book  on  America.  It's  great !  Come  over  and 
hear  them.  Do  you  good," 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  69 

When  the  dissimilar  pair  of  lovers  reached  the 
fireside  group,  Dr.  Binninger  was  giving  the  dra 
matic  conclusion  of  a  tale  about  a  monster  flight  of 
locusts,  a  dash  of  rain  cloud,  and  a  cold  wave  getting 
mixed  up  in  the  atmosphere  above  Harlem,  and  the 
resultant  hailstorm,  whereof  each  crystal-clear  stone 
had  imbedded  in  its  heart  a  prisoned  locust. 

"Just  fawncy  !  "  said  his  lordship.  "I  never 
knew  such  stohms  weah  common  heah  !  " 

Then  before  the  startled  eyes  of  the  travelers  a 
marvel  grew.  The.  visitor  pocketed  his  monocle, 
shut  his  notebook  with  a  bang,  smoothed  the  look 
of  vacuous  imbecility  out  of  his  face,  and  became 
at  once  as  much  a  business  man  as  any  of  them. 
"  Thank  you,  gentlemen,"  he  said.  "  My  friend 
Hart  gave  me  to  understand  that  you  could  tell  me 
something  about  cold  weather,  and  I  have  been 
most  interested,  but  I  have  myself  seen,  in  the 
Canadian  dominions  of  Her  Gracious  Majesty, 
Queen  Victoria — God  bless  her  ! — something  sur 
passing  anything  you  have  told  me.  I  was  riding, 
one  intensely  cold  night,  on  a  Canadian  Pacific 
railway  train,  between  Caribou  and  Musquash 
stations,  when  all  at  once  a  tremendous  crash  oc 
curred,  and  we  found  our  train  split  into  kindling 
wood  and  piled  up  all  around  the  station  of  Mus-* 


70  THE   BOOK   OF  LIES. 

quash,  which  was  very  convenient,  as  we  burned 
most  of  the  wreck  before  morning  in  the  station 
stove  to  keep  from  freezing." 

"  How  did  it  happen  ? "  asked  Hart,  while  the 
other  men  in  the  group  stole  uneasy  glances  at 
each  other. 

"  The  engineer  miscalculated  the  distance,"  said 
the  visitor,  his  crisp  utterance  contrasting  strangely 
with  his  assumed  drawl  a  moment  earlier.  "  It  was 
thirty-five  miles  between  stations.  He  was  ac 
customed  to  stop  before  reaching  Musquash,  and 
back  onto  a  side  track  to  let  a  long  freight  pass. 
But  on  this  night  the  cold  shrunk  the  rails  of  the 
track  so  much,  and  they  were  so  firmly  plated  to 
gether,  that  they  drew  the  two  towns  a  mile  and  a 
quarter  nearer  together,  and  the  engineer,  mistaking 
the  distance,  crashed  into  the  waiting  freight. 

"  Why,  up  there  I  knew  a  man  killed  by  his  best 
friend,  in  a  fight  over  a  dog,"  continued  his  lord 
ship,  with  a  glance  at  the  stupefied  face  of  Dr. 
Binninger.  The  visitor  and  Hart  were  apparently 
the  only  men  in  the  room  enjoying  themselves. 

"  After  he  knew  the  facts,  the  survivor  was  simply 
crazed  with  grief  at  what  he'd  done.  The  dead  man 
had  owned  a  magnificent  Newfoundland,  and  ac 
cused  the  other  of  stealing  it.  The  accused  man 


THE   BOOK  OF  LIES.  71 

didn't  think  it  worth  while  to  mention,  until  after 
the  fight,  that  he  had  rescued  from  the  cold  and 
taken  home  a  tiny  pup  about  seven  inches  long,  of 
breed  unknown  to  him.  When  he  returned  home  he 
found  in  his  shack  the  lost  Newfoundland,  and 
didn't  at  all  understand  the  situation  until  I  sug 
gested  to  him  that  the  Newfoundland  and  the  tiny 
pup  were  the  same  animal,  and  that  the  extreme 
cold  had  shrunk  the  magnificent  creature,  about 
whom  the  quarrel  occurred,  to  the  mean  dimensions 
of  the  little  animal  he  had  picked  up  in  the  snow." 

There  was  silence  for  a  moment,  none  of  the 
members  thinking  of  anything  to  say  which  would 
be  adequate  to  the  occasion.  Finally  Eckels 
changed  the  subject  :  "  Dr.  Binninger,  what  did 
you  say  to  that  new  waiter  the  other  night  ?  The 
steward  tells  me  that  Henry  ran  upstairs  in  a  perfect 
panic  of  terror,  threw  all  of  his  clothes  that  he  could 
get  hold  of,  without  too  much  difficulty,  into  a  grip, 
and  ran  away,  and  has  never  been  seen  since.  He 
didn't  steal  anything.  He  even  left  some  of  his 
own  property,  to  wit:  one  large  bone  collar  button, 
four  razors,  a  concertina,  a  set  of  bones,  and  a  plug 
hat.  He  seemed  as  if  in  terror  of  his  life,  and  has 
vanished  as  completely  as  if  the  earth  had  swal 
lowed  him." 


72  THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 

"  I  didn't  say  a  thing  to  him,"  protested  the  vir 
tuous  doctor;  "not  a  thing.  The  unfortunate  youth 
merely  stopped  me  at  the  door  to  ask  some  trifling, 
unimportant  question.  I  myself  noticed  the  ex 
treme  agitation  of  which  you  speak,  but  am  entirely 
at  a  loss  to  account  for  it.  However,  if  the  mem 
bers  think  that  I  am  in  any  way  responsible  for 
the  poor  boy's  disappearance,  I  will  endeavor  to  look 
him  up  and  report  on  the  matter.  A  Southern 
gentleman  of  the  old  school,  suh,  never  deserts  a 
poor  colored  boy  in  misfortune." 

"  Think  ought  state,"  said  Hart,  in  his  queer,  jerky 
way,  "  took  privilege  of  Travelers'  Club,  introduc 
ing  my  friend  as  English  lord.  No  lord  at  all. 
Just  plain  Canadian  lumberman,  Donald  Fraser  of 
Assiniboia.  Gentlemen,  again  let  me  introduce  my 
Canadian  friend,  Mr.  Fraser." 

The  customary  murmur  of  recognition  went  along 
the  circle,  and  Mr.  Fraser,  who  alone  seemed  to 
have  the  power  of  speech  left  him,  bowed  low,  and 
said  in  his  mellowest  tones:  "I  am  sure  I  am 
pleased  to  thank  you  all,  gentlemen,  and  to  express 
my  satisfaction  at  having  spent  a  most  enjoyable 
evening." 


CHAPTER  VI. 

MARCH    GALES   AND   OTHERS. 

"  Wow  !  "  said  Jim  Hart,  stamping  his  feet  as  he 
banged  the  door  of  the  Travelers'  Club  behind  him. 
"  Worst  March  gale  ever  I  saw.  Curious  how  it 
catches  moving  vans.  On  my  way  here,  saw  two  of 
'em,  great  big  fellows,  poking  along  street,  kind  o' 
careful  like,  when  biff  !  came  little  harder  gust  than 
usual,  caught  hind  wagon,  keeled  it  right  over  first 
one.  Then  first  one  left  behind;  wind  keeled  it  over 
other.  Away  they  went  up  street,  first  one,  then 
other,  like  boys  a-playing  leapfrog.  Never  saw  any 
one  in  life  so  scared  as  drivers  were.  Both  of  'em 
jumped  out  when  felt  old  ark  begin  to  hump  up. 
There  they  stood  on  sidewalk  hopping  up  'n'  down, 
V  yelling.  Wasn't  anything  else  they  could  do,  of 
course,  but — " 

"  Horses  killed,  I  suppose  ?  "  said  Dr.  Binninger, 
as  Hart  struggled  with  his  overcoat  and  rubbers. 

<(  Nope.  Never  touched  'em.  When  wagons 
jumped,  they  snapped  traces,  'n'  each  time  wagon 
came  down,  it  fell  kind  of  slanting,  rolling  over 
other,  'n'  hit  ground  far  enough  ahead  miss  horses. 

73 


74  THE   BOOK   OF  LIES, 

After  two  or  three  narrow  escapes,  they  scooted  out 
sidewise,  ran  away.  Furniture  must  have  been 
little  mixed  up  inside,  though;  last  I  saw  of  wagons, 
'  God  Bless  Our  Home  '  motto  sticking  up  over  door 
of  one  of  'em,  just  natural  as  boarding-house." 

"Yes,"  said  Parker  Adams,  "  it  is  a  pretty  lively 
storm  for  the  city,  but  of  course  nothing  to  what 
you  see  sometimes  out  in  the  open  prairie,  where 
there's  nothing  to  break  the  force  of  the  wind.  I 
remember  being  on  a  slow  passenger  train  in  Kansas, 
at  one  time,  when  a  gale  came  up  behind,  and  began 
to  shove  us  along  the  track  like  mad.  In  a  single 
minute,  during  which  we  passed  by  actual  count  713 
telegraph  poles,  ten  rods  apart,  the  axles  heated  and 
swelled,  and  the  wheels  stuck  fast,  and  began  sliding 
along  the  rails  without  turning.  Then  the  wheels 
and  rails  alike  were  transformed  in  an  instant  to 
glowing  masses  of  red-hot  metal  by  the  tremendous 
friction,  and  the  cars  would  certainly  have  been  set 
on  fire,  adding  new  horrors  to  the  situation,  if  the 
engineer,  with  rare  presence  of  mind,  hadn't  let 
down  his  water  scoop  as  we  came  to  a  trough.  The 
water  splashed  sidewise  upon  the  red-hot  metal, 
cooling  it  in  an  instant,  and,  as  it  cooled,  welding 
the  wheels  to  the  rail,  as  well  as  each  rail  end  to  end 
with  the  next  for  several  rods.  The  running  gear 


THE   BOOK   OF  LIES.  75 

stopped  at  once  dead  still,  firm  as  the  everlasting 
hills,  but  of  course  the  car  bodies,  going  at  such  a 
rate,  slid  right  along  off  the  trucks.  It  all  hap 
pened  in  a  minute,  but  Lord  I  Wasn't  I  scared  !" 

"  There  must  have  been  a  calamity  when  the  cars 
descended,"  exclaimed  the  ex-Kentuckian,Binninger, 
who  was  mixing  some  things  in  a  big  glass  bowl. 

"  No  ;  not  a  bit  of  it !  You  see,  when  the  water 
from  the  scoop  struck  the  red-hot  rails  and  wheels,  a 
tremendous  mass  of  steam  was  generated.  We  were 
in  a  cutting  at  the  time,  and  the  steam  blew  us  out 
of  it  like  a  cork  out  of  a  bottle,  throwing  us  only 
a  few  feet  above  the  natural  level  of  the  land.  The 
wind  was  coming  kind  of  quartering,  a  little  from 
the  right,  and  it  just  slid  the  car  bodies  off  over  to 
the  left,  and  there  we  settled  down  as  nice  and  easy 
as  a  rocking-chair.  But  I  shudder  to  think  what 
might  have  happened,  but  for  that  steam." 

"  You'd  'a'  gone  right  against  the  left  hand  bank, 
bang  !  as  nearly  as  I  can  judge  from  your  descrip 
tion,"  remarked  Tom  Fenton.  "I  never  had  any 
such  narrow  shave  myself,  but  my  hair  did  stand  up 
once,  I  tell  you,  when  I  was  in  Texas.  It  was  a 
breathless,  hot  afternoon,  no  wind,  black  clouds — 
well,  you  know  what  it's  like,  just  before  a  norther 
— and  I  was  riding  range  with  three  or  four  cow- 


76 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 


boys,  fourteen  miles  from  shelter.  Then  came  the 
wind,  wooh  !  And  all  at  once  the  black  clouds 
turned  white,  and  began  chunking  us  with  the  darn 
edest,  biggest  hailstones  I  ever  saw  in  my  life.  Most 
of  'em  were  about  the  size  of  a  football,  but,  once 


in  a  while,  a  fellow  as  big  as  a  rain  barrel  would 
come  along — two  or  three  stones  stuck  together,  as 
near  as  I  could  tell  afterward.  Well,  gentlemen, 
this  sounds  rather  thrilling,  but  as  I'm  a  man  of 
truth  and  honor,  the  very  size  of  the  hailstones  was 
our  salvation.  If  they'd  been  smaller,  we  couldn't 


THE   BOOK  OF  LIES.  77 

'a*  dodged  'em  anyhow.  As  it  was,  we  jumped  off 
our  broncos,  which  were  struck  dead  in  an  instant, 
and  began  looking  up  and  dodging  the  lumps.  They 
were  so  big  we  could  see  'em  coming  a  hundred 
feet  up,  and  get  onto  their  curves.  Of  course,  too, 
such  large  hailstones  couldn't  be  very  close  to 
gether,  and  we  were  all  slender  young  fellows  and 
active,  and  could  get  out  of  the  way.  But  one  of 
the  cowboys — poor  fellow  ! — was  a  Harvard  gradu 
ate,  and  as  shortsighted  as  a  second  fiddle.  Right 
when  we  were  hopping  about,  like  hens  on  a  hot 
griddle,  his  glasses  fell  off,  and  he  couldn't  see  a 
thing;  no  sir,  not  a  thing  !  It  was  horrible  to  hear 
his  one  agonizing  shriek  ere  he  fell,  and  not  to  be 
able  to  help  him,  but  we  couldn't  look  down  long 
enough  to  get  his  lamps  for  him,  and — I  don't  like  to 
recall  the  scene.  It  didn't  last  long,  but — well,  to 
cut  a  long  story  short,  after  the  bombardment  stop 
ped,  we  set  up  a  heap  of  hailstones  to  mark  the 
spot,  and  went  away.  We  had  to  go  150  miles  for 
an  undertaker,  and  when  we  got  back,  three  days 
later,  the  body  lay  frozen  within  its  icy  monument, 
but  about  it  all  traces  of  the  storm  had  passed  away, 
and  the  summer  sun  was  smiling  down  as  sweetly  as 
if  death  were  impossible,  and  storms  could  be  no 
more." 


78  THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 

"  It  must  be  a  terrible  shock  to  you,  even  now,  to 
recall  such  a  scene,  said  Dr.  Binninger,  "  may  I  ven 
ture  to  suggest,  Colonel,  that — "  he  waved  a  drip 
ping  punch  ladle  in  the  direction  of  the  glass  bowl. 
For  a  season  brief  but  ecstatic,  the  members  gathered 
about,  and  the  gentlest  of  aromas,  a  flavor,  subtly 
insidious,  of  mingled  rye,  lemon,  sugar,  and  other 
benign  vegetable  products,  was  wafted  throughout 
the  room. 

"  Speaking  of  punch,"  said  the  big  Kentuckian, 
setting  down  his  glass  with  a  long  sigh;  "  speaking 
of  punch — and  I  trust  it  may  not  seem  the  arro 
gance  of  self-esteem,  if  I  remark  parenthetically,  that 
this  punch,  that  we  have  just  enjoyed,  is  most  excel 
lent — I  wonder  if  I  ever  told  you  of  the  time  when 
one  of  the  largest  cellars  in  Lexington  was  tempo 
rarily  transformed  by  the  direct  visitation  of  the 
Almighty  into  a  perfect  sea  of  unparalleled  punch. 
It  happened  that  a  thriving  wholesale  grocery,  in  that 
enterprising  town,  was  struck  by  lightning,  which 
completely  fused  the  varied  contents  of  the  seven 
stories.  It  also  happened  that  the  stock  in  trade 
consisted,  as  is  usually  the  case  in  our  state,  of  arti 
cles  imperatively  demanded  by  the  human  constitu 
tion  in  these  latitudes,  such  as  whiskey,  sugar, 
oranges  and  lemons;  and  these  ingredients  were 


THE  BOOK   OF  LIES.  79 

also  most  naturally  present  in  about  the  proportion, 
in  which  they  are  in  usual  demand.  The  lightning 
broached  every  cask,  smashed  every  barrel,  crushed 
every  lemon,  and  so  tore  the  floors  that  their  con 
tents  speedily  sought  the  cellar,  which  was  fortu 
nately  equal  to  the  responsibility.  The  amiable  fluid 
was  there  joined  by  a  little  water  from  the  angry 
clouds — though,  for  myself,  I  could  never  see  that 
good  punch  was  improved  by  the  addition  of  the  less 
noble  fluid — and  the  comparatively  insignificant 
quantities  of  spices,  fresh  fruit,  and  other  elements 
which  had  been  in  the  emporium,  added  to  the  mass 
a  certain  piquancy  much  praised  at  the  time  by  con 
noisseurs.  Many  people  partook  appreciatively  of 
the  punch,  and  several  of  Louisville's  talented  clergy 
men—than  whom  the  South  has  no  more  gifted,  suh 
—preached  upon  the  incident  as  an  eloquent  refuta 
tion  of  the  theories  of  certain  fanatics,  who  hold 
that  the  Author  of  the  Universe  looks,  with  dis 
pleasure,  upon  convivial  enjoyment  of  the  blessings 
by  Him  vouchsafed." 

" After  all,"  Fenton  broke  in  upon  the  silence 
that  followed  the  relation  of  this  incident,  "  it 
couldn't  have  been  better  punch  than  this." 

"  Suh,"  said  the  Kentuckian,  with  a  low  bow, 
"  punch  past  is  never  equal  to  punch  present." 


80  THE  BOOK   OF  LIES. 

"  The  fortuitous  mixture  of  the  punch  ingredients 
reminds  me,"  said  Parker  Adams,  "  that  I  once  as 
sisted  at  a  thunder-storm  in  Oklahoma.  After  it 
was  over,  the  late  householders  were  greatly  sur 
prised  at  finding,  upon  the  supposed  site  of  the 
extinct  grocery,  a  large  mass  of  excellent  ice-cream 
in  bulk,  melting  rapidly  away  under  the  sun,  but 
still  good  at  heart.  The  explanation  was  simple. 
The  lightning-stroke  which  destroyed  the  roof  of 
the  building,  and  shattered  every  barrel  and  bottle 
in  the  place,  fused  and  melted  a  dozen  milk  cans,  re 
leasing  their  contents.  Directly  over  the  cans,  on 
the  shelves,  were  a  number  of  paper  bags  of  sugar, 
a  sack  of  flour,  and  seven  bottles  of  vanilla  extract, 
whose  released  contents  fell  into  the  mass.  Before 
the  milk  had  time  to  flow  away,  it  was  buried  up  in 
such  hailstones  as  even  Oklahoma  never  saw  before, 
a  fall  of  two  feet  occurring  almost  in  an  instant. 
The  ice  balls  mingling  with  the  contents  of  a  dozen 
barrels  of  salt,  which  had  been  standing  about 
the  milk  cans,  produced  such  an  intense  cold  that 
the  mingled  milk,  vanilla,  sugar,  and  flour  were  in 
stantly  solidified  on  the  surface,  and,  in  half  an  hour, 
became  a  firm  mass  to  the  core  of  excellent  ice 
cream." 

"  If  it  could  but  come  more  gently,"  sighed  Dr, 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  8 1 

Binninger,  "the  ice  would  no  doubt  have  been 
highly  appreciated  in  a  warm  climate  like  Okla 
homa.  Ice  is  even  more  scarce  in  Texas,  where  a 
remarkably  successful  plan  of  obtaining  it  has  been 
invented,  by  a  very  dear  old  friend  of  mine,  living 
near  El  Paso,  named  Barney  Medary.  Even  in  the 
hottest  summer  day  Medary  will  partly  fill  a  tin  can 
with  water,  attach  it  to  the  tail  of  an  enormous  kite, 
and  send  it  to  the  great  height  of  three  miles,  where, 
in  the  rarefied  atmosphere,  it  is  promptly  frozen, 
completely  filling  the  can.  After  a  sufficient  inter 
val,  the  kite  is  hauled  in  with  a  windlass,  and 
the  cake  of  ice  removed.  But  the  inventor  is 
now  perfecting  an  even  more  effective  plan  for  man 
ufacturing  on  a  large  scale.  He  sends  up  a  huge 
kite,  150  feet  long,  by  a  steel  wire  cable.  Under 
the  kite  is  suspended  a  strong  pulley,  over  which 
runs  an  endless  chain,  bearing  at  intervals  hooks,  on 
which  the  cans  of  water  going  up,  are  hung.  As 
they  just  balance  the  cans  of  ice  coming  down,  but 
little  power  is  needed.  As  each  hook  passes  the  op 
erator,  he  removes  the  can  of  ice,  and  hangs  in  its 
stead  one  of  water.  The  cable  travels  but  three 
miles  an  hour,  and  as  the  big  kite  is  kept  an  alti 
tude  of  from  four  to  six  miles,  the  cans  remain  in 
the  cold  strata  of  the  air  quite  long  enough  for  the 


82  THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 

water  to  become  solidified.  The  inventor  expects  to 
be  able  to.  furnish  a  ten-cent  lump  of  ice  for  three 
cents." 

"  I  happen  to  have  got  wind,"  said  Parker  Adams, 
"of  an  enormous  scheme  for  modifying  the  cli 
mate  of  the  Eastern  coast  of  North  America  in  the 
summer  time.  I  expect  to  make  a  fortune  out  of  a 
few  shares  in  the  company.  Some  of  the  more 
prominent  investors  are  John  James  Pastor,  Corne 
lius  Scott  Vanderbilk,  Drechsel,  Dorgan  &  Co.,  and 
others  whose  names  are  a  synonym  for  probity  and 
vast  resources.  The  syndicate  has  acquired  a  num 
ber  of  townships  of  prime,  glacier-bearing  land  in 
the  vicinity  of  Rejkajvik,  and  has  contracted  with 
shipbuilders,  Clamp  &  Sons,  of  Philadelphia,  for  a 
fleet  of  powerful  ocean  tugs.  The  scheme  is,  in 
brief,  to  tow  icebergs  of  manageable  dimensions 
down  from  Rejkajvik,  and  deposit  them  at  regular 
intervals  all  along  the  coast.  Then,  by  means  of 
powerful  blast  exhausts,  worked  by  tidal  power,  the 
entire  air  supply  of  a  dozen  sea-coast  states  is  to  be 
passed  over  the  cooling  ice.  For  use  on  navigable 
rivers,  like  the  Hudson  and  the  Delaware,  ice  floes, 
drawing  no  more  than  a  dozen  feet  of  water,  are  to 
be  employed. 

"  Ice  grottoes  in  the  bergs,  after  the  manner  of 


THE   BOOK   OF  LIES.  83 

those  in  Swiss  glaciers,  are  to  be  inexpensively  cut,  en 
route,  by  the  steam -jet  process,  so  that  when  the 
bergs  arrive  off  the  coast  they  will  be  ready  to  re 
ceive  visitors.  Off  Newport  and  Bar  Harbor  there 
will  be  first,  second,  and  third-class  grottoes,  after 
the  English  fashion.  The  cost  of  all  this  might  seem 
almost  prohibitive,  but  the  syndicate  is  also  perfecting 
a  patent  by  which  a  cheap  and  powerful  engine  can  be 
put  on  board  an  iceberg,  converting  it  for  a  time  into 
a  real  automobile  ice  steamship,  with  its  own  propel 
ler,  capable  of  steaming  four  knots  an  hour,  with 
hydrogen  fuel  extracted  from  the  atmosphere  by  a 
new  process.  It  is  expected  that  by  the  summer  of 
1897  the  climate  of  our  Eastern  seaboard,  from 
Charleston  to  Mt.  Desert,  will  be  mild,  balmy  and 
equable." 

"  Hem!  I  am  not  sure  that  I  could  give  such  a 
scheme  my  unqualified  indorsement,"  remarked  Dr. 
Binninger,  sagely  shaking  his  head.  "  I  question 
your  legal  powers  in  the  premises.  Many  like  hot 
weather,  and  will  not  thank  you  for  destroying  it. 
Besides,  will  not  your  process,  by  robbing  the  coast 
of  its  summer  heat,  make  the  winter's  cold  even  more 
unbearable.  Is  it  not  bad  enough  as  it  is  ?  Why, 
only  a  few  weeks  ago,  a  friend  of  mine,  George  Jenks, 
of  Centralia,  Kentucky,  drew  a  quantity  of  boil- 


84  THE   BOOK   OF   LIES. 

ing  water  to  take  a  bath.  The  tub  was  cold,  and  the 
water  cooled  so  rapidly  on  coming  in  contact  with  it, 
that  when  Jenks  jumped  in,  he  was  almost  instantly 
frozen  solid  in  the  tub,  and  perished  miserably. 
The  wind,  at  the  time,  was  blowing  so  hard  that  it 
struck  a  copper  kettle,  and  blew  it  inside  out,  so  that 
the  legs  were  inside;  and  twisted  the  well  so  crooked 
that  you  couldn't  look  down  it  without  getting  dizzy." 

"  I  say,  Eckels,"  said  Parker  Adams,  suddenly, 
"  have  you  no  information  on  this  subject  to  add  to 
the  common  stock?" 

All  eyes  turned  toward  a  chair  away  at  one  end  of 
the  semi-circle  about  the  hearth,  where,  well  in  the 
shadow,  a  lean  figure  was  seen,  chin  on  palms,  and 
elbows  on  knees. 

"  Somehow  I  don't  feel  in  a  scientific  vein  this 
evening,"  Eckels  responded,  moodily. 

"  You  look  like  a  pretty  fair  liar,  too,"  said 
Adams. 

"Appearances  are  deceptive.  The  honest  waggle 
of  a  meek  dog's  tail  doesn't  denote  absence  of 
teeth.  A  horseshoe  isn't  lucky  when  the  equine 
owner  propels  it  against  your  abdomen  with  his  fairy 
hoof.  In  short,  I'll  be  excused,  please." 

"What  is  it,  old  man  ?  "  Harry  Porter  whispered 
with  ready  sympathy. 


THE  BOOK   OF  LIES.  8$ 

"  Nothing,"  said  Eckels,  shortly. 

"Nothing  !  Great  heavens  !  is  it  so  bad  as  that?" 
exclaimed  Porter,  unconsciously  quoting  Eckels' 
own  words  on  a  previous  occasion. 

"  D — n  !  "  growled  Eckels,  jumping  to  his  feet  in  a 
rage,  "if  I  can't  come  here  and  sit  quietly  without 
being  pestered  by  old  fools  with  requests  for  stories, 
and  by  young  ones  with  stale  maxims,  I'll  get  out, 
that's  all." 

A  minute  or  more  elapsed  after  Eckels  had 
banged  the  door  behind  his  retreating  form;  then 
Parker  Adams  emitted  a  long,  low  whistle  and  casu 
ally  remarked:  "Quite  stormy,  isn't  it?" 

They  agreed  that  it  was. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

DAUGHTERS    OF    EVE. 

Miss  COPELAND  and  Miss  Ann  Copeland  were  as 
much  alike  as  two  women  ever  are,  and  that  is  not 
at  all.  Miss  Copeland  had  hair  which  her  admirers 
called  "  sunny"  and  her  detractors  "white-horse 
reddish."  It  was  beautiful,  it  was  abundant,  fine, 
long  and  smooth  ;  yet  it  was  not  her  only  charm  ; 
for  with  it  went  a  plump  though  petite  figure,  a  per 
fect  complexion  and  big  wondering  eyes. 

Miss  Ann  Copeland  was  of  that  moderate  brunette 
type  which  is  almost  distinctly  American.  She  was 
taller  and  more  athletic  than  her  sister,  her  com 
plexion  had  more  of  the  olive  tint,  and  her  big, 
brown  eyes  seemed  in  some  lights  almost  black, 
like  her  hair,  which  in  the  sunlight  was  seen  to  be 
of  a  warmer  hue. 

The  Misses  Copeland,  being  unfortunately  fairly 
well-to-do,  had  "  afternoons  "  for  the  want  of  better 
employment,  when,  with  the  aid  of  other  like  circum 
stanced  young  women,  they  so  managed  to  pour  tea, 
squeeze  lemons,  handle  tiny  wafers,  and  otherwise 
play  hostess,  that  each  movement  was  a  poem,  and 
each  pose  a  picture.  It  was  like  a  child's  game 
of  "play  house."  A  healthy  tramp  could  have 
86 


THE   BOOK  OF  LIES.  87 

eaten  and  drunk  everything  in  the  room,  and  gone 
away  hungry  ;  but  that  wouldn't  have  been  so 
poetic. 

Eckels  was  shameless.  He  permitted  Harry 
Porter  to  drop  in  at  the  Copeland  house  under  his 
own  guidance.  It  was  not  in  accordance  with  his 
plans  for  Harry,  but  his  own  confidence,  in  his  power 
to  please  Miss  Copeland,  was  somehow  shaken,  and 
he  wanted  to  see  her  again. 

When  the  two  were  ushered  into  the  parlor,  where 
already  the  shades  were  drawn,  and  the  candles 
lighted,  though  the  March  sun  had  not  set,  they 
were  amazed  at  hearing,  instead  of  the  susurrus  of 
half  a  dozen  women's  voices  talking  at  once,  certain 
big,  booming  tones  they  well  knew.  Dr.  Binninger 
was  seated,  teacup  in  hand,  holding  forth  to  eight 
or  ten  pretty  girls.  There  was  no  other  male  thing 
in  the  room  save  a  tall  boy  of  seventeen,  who  would 
have  been  more  comfortable  if  he  had  known  what 
to  do  with  his  hands. 

When  Eckels  and  Harry  had  greeted  Mrs.  Cope- 
land,  an  admirably  quiet  and  self-effacing  Ameri 
can  mother ;  when  the  daughters  of  the  house  had 
met  them  with  dignified  reserve,  and  the  other  girls, 
with  more  effusion,  Essie  Terburg,  a  tiny  person 
with  a  Roman  nose  and  a  retrousse  disposition,  cried 


88  THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 

in  a  shrill  treble  :  "  Oh,  Mr.  Eckels,  Dr.  Binninger 
has  been  telling  us  such  a  funny  story  about  the 
English  lord  who  fooled  you  so  at  the  Travelers' 
Club." 

Eckels  was  angry  to  think  that  Binninger  had 
been  putting  him  at  a  disadvantage  before  the 
ladies,  yet  in  his  retort  he  was  unable  to  think  of 
anything  more  brilliant  than  the  familiar  ''you're 
another." 

"I'm  sure,"  he  said,  "that  Dr.  Binninger  was  as 
active  in  giving  Mr.  Fraser  information,  and  as 
much  astounded  when  the  tables  were  turned,  as  any 
of  us." 

"  Ha  !  Ha  !  Ha  !  "  roared  the  big  doctor  ;  «  so  I 
was,  my  boy — so  I  was  !  But  it  was  a  study  to  look 
at  your  face.  I  wish  the  ladies  could  have  seen  you 
when  Fraser  told  that  story  about  the  shrinking  dog. 
Though  to  be  sure,"  Dr.  Binninger  went  on,  becom 
ing  more  grave,  "  it  was  no  more  wonderful  than 
many  things  which  have  come  within  my  own 
observation.  Hem  !  It  was  once  my  fortune,  for 
instance,  to  see  a  most  terrific  battle  between  a 
rattlesnake  and  a  puff  adder.  The  rattler  was  so 
strong  that  he  quickly  swallowed  the  other,  but 
then,  so  far  as  appeared  to  the  interested  spectator, 
the  puff  adder  began  puffing.  At  any  rate  a  great 


THE   BOOK  OF  LIES.  89 

balloon  promptly  appeared  to  be  distending  the  rat 
tler,  and  his  skin  seemed  on  the  point  of  bursting. 
Distracted  by  his  frightful  torture,  he  rushed  into  the 
river,  when  the  puff  floated,  naturally  depressing  his 
head,  until  he  was  drowned.  Of  course  the  puff 
adder  perished  with  him,  but  had  at  least  the  satis 
faction  of  selling  its  life  as  dearly  as  possible." 

"  I  don't  know  why  it  is,"  said  Nina  Markham, 
a  tall  and  darkly  beautiful  girl,  with  the  excessively 
feminine  air  that  big  women  are  apt  to  effect ;  "  if 
I  were  to  see  a  snake,  I  should  faint  right  away  ;  I 
just  know  I  should.  And  yet  I  do  like  to  hear 
about  them,"  she  added,  reflectively. 

"  Possibly  you  would  be  interested,  then,  in  the 
dramatic  suicide  of  a  snake  which  I  once  witnessed 
in  Limerick,  Ireland,"  continued  Dr.  Binninger. 
"  This  was  a  large  black-snake  which,  having  been 
worsted  in  a  fierce  battle  with  another  of  slightly 
different  species,  trailed  away  in  deep  dejection. 
Finally  as  it  dragged  itself  along,  closely  watched 
by  Patrick  McClaughry,  a  manufacturer  of  she 
been,  and  by  myself,  resolution  seemed  to  fire 
the  soul  of  the  defeated  reptile.  Grasping  firmly 
with  its  mouth  a  small  stone,  the  snake  climbed  a 
tree,  and  presently  hung  by  its  tail  from  a  horizon 
tal  limb.  Next  it  began  whirling  about  the  limb 


90  THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 

with  frightful  rapidity.  Longer  and  longer  its  body 
stretched  under  the  centrifugal  strain,  until,  with  a 
last  despairing  effort,  the  snake's  body  broke  in 
halves,  the  weighted  head  and  neck  flying  to  a  con 
siderable  distance,  while  the  tail  remained  clinging 
to  the  limb  of  the  tree.  Then  only  were  we  able  to 
see  the  full  purpose  of  the  act.  For  just  as  a  boy 
throws  a  stone  from  a  sling,  the  snake,  in  its  dying 
moment,  released  the  stone  it  held  in  its  mouth. 
The  missile,  hurling  through  the  air,  struck  with 
deadly  force  the  rival  snake,  which  ha  1  followed  to 
gloat  over  the  suffering  of  its  victim,  rnd  crushed  it 
dead. 

"  Probably  the  most  peculiar  varieties  of  Ameri 
can  reptilia  are  the  hoop-snake,  the  glass  snake,  and 
the  sidewinder,"  continued  the  doctor.  "  In  a 
museum  which  I  used  once  to  visit,  a  glass  snake 
and  rattler  were  confined  together  in  a  cage.  The 
rattler  used  to  bite  the  other,  but  the  glass  snake 
would  promptly  unjoint  itself,  and  reunite  without 
the  bitten  section.  By  and  by,  when  the  missing 
piece  had  recovered  from  the  bite,  the  glass  snake 
unjointed  and  took  it  in  again.  But  one  day  the 
rattler,  after  biting  its  room-mate,  formed  a  new 
resolution.  Before  the  glass  snake  could  resume 
possession  of  its  missing  sections,  the  rattler 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  9! 

swallowed  it,  and  the  glass  snake  was  forced  to  do 
without  a  portion  of  its  length.  Again  and  again, 
this  operation  was  repeated,  until  there  was  nothing 
left  of  the  glass  snake  but  its  oddly  joined  head 
and  tail.  Here  the  two  enemies  were  separated. 
The  foreshortened  snake,  however,  soon  died,  its 
constitution  not  being  equal  to  the  strain." 

"Do  you  believe  in  the  sea-serpent,  Dr.  Binnin- 
ger?"  asked  Miss  Copeland,  who  had  scarcely 
addressed  a  word  to  Eckels  since  his  arrival. 

"  Do  I  believe  ?  My  dear  young  lady,  I  once  saw 
one,  off  the  Solomon  Islands,  which  had  a  huge 
open  circular  mouth  like  an  enormous  life  buoy, 
with  broad  white  lips  and  a  dark  interior  big  enough 
to  admit  a  ship's  boat.  The  beast  was  twelve  or 
fifteen  feet  wide,  and  had  several  pairs  of  wing-like 
flappers.  The  fins  were  forty  feet  long,  and  the 
whole  aspect  was  so  generally  horrid  that  extra  grog 
was  served,  and  there  was  less  profanity  aboard  for 
twenty-six  hours. 

"Then  there  was  a  sea-serpent  of  undoubted 
authenticity  last  summer,  off  Block  Island, — only  a 
little  one  about  twenty  feet  long, — and  one  in  the 
Indian  Territory,  which  had  a  head  like  a  cow,  ears 
like  a  mule,  and  a  tail  like  an  alligator.  It  was 
seventy-three  feet  long." 


92  THE   BOOK   OF  LIES. 

"  Pshaw  !  "  said  Mrs.  Copeland,  "  there  isn't 
water  enough  in  the  whole  Indian  territory  to  float 
a  snake  so  long  as  that." 

"  Quite  true,"  said  Eckels,  "  but  a  sea-serpent  a 


mile  long  can  be  floated   in  a  pint  of  Kansas  whis 
key  smuggled  over  the  border  in  a  boot-leg." 

"  I  choose  to  assume/'  said  Dr.  Binninger,  rather 
stiffly,  "  that  Mr.  Eckels  has  forgotten  that  I  made 
the  statement  to  which  he  apparently  takes  excep 
tion,  upon  my  own  authority.  To  resume  the  sub 
ject,  the  adaptability  of  the  animal  kingdom  to  the 
acquired  habits  of  man,  and  the  imitative  instinct  of 
the  higher  animal  types,  have  often  been  noted  by 
scientific  observers,  like  Agassiz,  Buffon,  and  myself. 
An  interesting  case  is  reported  from  Pike  County, 
Pennsylvania.  In  old  Pike,  as  in  many  other  places, 
bicycles  have  become  quite  numerous,  and  have  evi- 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  93 

dently  inspired  the  mute  onlookers  of  the  woods  and 
fields  to  emulation.  The  other  day  a  Jericho  ama 
teur  secured  a  photograph  of  a  living  bicycle.  Its 
wheels  were  a  couple  of  hoop-snakes,  which,  before 
forming  a  circle,  after  their  usual  manner,  by  put 
ting  their  tails  in  their  mouths,  lined  themselves  up 
so  that  a  gray  squirrel  could  scamper  upon  their 
circumference  as  he  would  in  a  whirling-cage.  With 
his  forefeet  upon  one  animated  wheel,  and  his  hind 
feet  upon  another,  the  squirrel  could  maintain  its 
level,  and  carry  upon  its  own  back  a  seated  chip 
munk.  This  queer  combination  is  capable  of  a 
speed  of  one  mile  in  fifty-seven  seconds — only  six 
seconds  slower  than  the  best  time  of  an  unimpeded 
hoop-snake." 

Some  of  the  young  ladies,  quickly  tiring  of  the 
subject,  had  begun  a  sotto  voce  conversation  about 
art  embroidery,  and  the  quick  ear  of  the  doctor  had 
noted  the  fact.  Not  wishing  to  lose  an  auditor,  he 
turned  to  the  dissidents  with  his  blankest  smile  : 

"  I  suppose  you  have  heard,"  he  began,  "of  well- 
authenticated  cases,  where  a  needle,  entering  a  per 
son's  body,  has  '  traveled,'  or  '  worked  its  way,' 
from  point  to  point,  as  the  ordinary,  unscientific 
person  usually  describes  the  process.  These  cases 
have  usually  been  those  of  persons  with  very  soft 


94  THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 

flesh.  A  girl  in  Mobile,  whom  I  knew  very  well, 
carries  this  flabbiness  of  muscular  structure  to  an 
extreme.  Needles  thrust  into  her  flesh  seem  to 
cause  her  no  pain,  and  little  annoyance.  She  is 
accustomed,  wherever  she  goes,  to  carry  several 
needles,  threaded  with  silk  of  different  colors,  thrust 
into  various  portions  of  her  anatomy.  To  get  one 
of  them,  she  has  only  to  hold  a  strong  magnet  upon 
the  opposite  side  of  her  person,  and  the  needle  re 
quired  is  attracted  right  through  her  body." 

Others  dropped  in,  as  the  afternoon  drew  toward 
evening.  Langdon  came,  with  his  wife.  Tom  Fen- 
ton  "ran  round,"  on  his  way  home.  There  were 
two  or  three  more  awkward  youth,  "deyv'lish  fel 
lows,  don't  ye  know,"  but  subdued  in  company. 
And  there  were  more  girls. 

Presently  Harry  Porter  found  himself  talking  to 
a  washed-out  blonde  in  baby-blue,  named  Curtis, 
while  Ann  Copeland  sat  within  earshot.  This  was 
the  situation  Eckels  had  outlined  when  he  said, 
"  Talk  at  her,  not  to  her." 

"  Ah,  your  sex  is  so  selfish,"  Miss  Curtis  was 
saying. 

"Yet  for  women  men  have  died,"  said  Harry, 
mentally  resolved  to  talk  his  best. 

"Oh,  no;  for  indigestion,  maybe."  (Giggle.) 


THE   BOOK  OF  LIES.  95 

"  I  solemnly  assure  you,  Miss  Curtis,"  said 
Harry,  gravely,  "that  there's  a  woman  in  Atwood, 
Illinois,  for  whom  many  men  have  died.  She  is  an 
undertaker." 

"Oh,  you  cynic!"  and  Miss  Curtis  playfully 
tapped  Harry  with  her  fan. 

"  No  man  can  be  a  cynic  in  your  presence,"  said 
he,  warmly,  bending  toward  her  ever  so  little.  "And 
no  true  woman  can  be  a  cynic  at  all,  except  as  a 
pose.  I  never  saw  a  cynical  woman.  This  is  why 
even  the  most  acute  of  your  sex  so  readily  listen  to 
the  unworthy  members  of  mine.  And  what  man  is 
worthy  of  woman  ?  We  are  such  feeble  folk.  Miss 
Curtis,  a  star  once  looked  down  on  a  city.  It  saw 
little  creatures  running  about.  They  were  born, 
died,  fought,  hated,  kissed,  loved,  laughed,  wept. 
But  whatever  else  they  did,  they  ran  about." 

"Ah,  but  some  men  are  not  feeble,'*  said  the  lit 
tle  blonde,  with  a  meaning  look  at  Harry's  athletic 
shoulders. 

"  When  a  man  brags  of  his  power,  ask  him  to 
make  a  blade  of  grass.  Ask  him  why  we  use  a  spi 
der's  web,  and  not  any  thread  that  human  ingenuity 
can  spin,  to  mark  off  the  objectives  of  our  tele 
scopes.  Ah,  the  folly  of  man  !  When  he  would 
recreate  himself,  he  does  not  consider  how  he  can 


96  THE   BOOK   OF  LIES. 

make  himself  different.  He  only  thinks  of  going  to 
see  some  new  thing." 

"Really,  Mr.  Porter,"  said  Miss  Curtis,  "you 
are  so  critical  of  men,  what  must  you  think  of 
women  ? " 

"  I  ?  I  am  like  a  violin,  that  when  pressed  by  the 
hands  of  beauty,  can  emit  only  hoarse,  unmusical 
sounds.  I  am  always  at  my  worst  when,  with  a 
beautiful  woman,  I  would  be  at  my  best." 

"  But  is  a  woman  always  at  her  best  ?  " 

"Possibly;  probably;  I  do  not  know.  At  least 
it  seems  so  to  me  when  I  am  with  her.  I — " 

"  Miss  Curtis,"  said  Ann  Copeland,  hurriedly, 
her  clear  cheeks  aflame;  "  there's  a  nice  boy  over 
there,  who  is  having  a  horrid  time.  I  wish  you'd 
let  me  bring  him  over  for  an  introduction." 

Eckels,  meanwhile,  had  made  a  last  desperate  at 
tempt  to  regain  control  of  the  situation,  in  another 
quarter  of  the  room,  by  telling  Miss  Copeland  and 
Nina  Markham  a  fairy  tale  about  the  shrinking  pro 
pensities  of  new  flannel  garments,  a  subject  some 
how  suggested  by  Dr.  Binninger's  needle  story. 
"  Gus  Tooper,  of  Alameda,"  he  said,  "  had  put  on 
a  very  heavy  new  flannel  undershirt,  which  was 
rather  tight,  and  began  work,  chopping  wood.  Pro 
fuse  perspiration  ensued,  and  Tooper  presently  com-- 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  97 

plained  to  his  companion,  of  a  strange,  oppressed 
sensation.  Then  he  fell,  in  a  dying  condition.  The 
inquest  developed  the  fact  that  he  had  expired  from 
the  pressure  of  the  shrinking  undershirt  expelling 
the  air  from  his  lungs. 

When  Eckels  had  lamely  finished  his  bungling 
tale,  Miss  Copeland  looked  at  him  rather  queerly 
for  a  moment,  and  then  changed  the  subject,  deftly 
conveying  the  idea  that  the  narrative  bordered  on 
indelicacy.  Nor  would  she  thereafter  notice  his 
presence. 

So,  with  much  chattering,  the  callers  gradually 
drifted  away,  and  the  sisters  were  left  together. 

"  What  a  splendid,  intellectual  fellow  Harry  Por 
ter  is  !  "  said  the  elder,  presently.  "  I  don't  see 
why — " 

"  That's  just  what  May  Curtis  said  !  The  little 
goose  !  I  know  she  didn't  understand  a  word  he 
was  saying  !  " 

"  Well,  you  need  n't  be  so  spiteful  about  it.  You 
could  have  had  him,  if  you  wanted  him.  And,  of 
course,  he  is  brilliant.  He  was  in  Princeton." 

"  I  don't  want  him  !  And  as  for  Dr.  Binninger, 
I  despise  him  !" 

"  Still,"  said  Miss  Copeland,  "a  man's  a  man; 
and  they're  none  too  plenty  at  'afternoons ' !  " 


98  THE   BOOK  OF  LIES. 

"  No  wonder.  Men  have  something  to  do  !  I 
wish  I  were  a  man  !  If  I  were  one  I  wouldn't  let 
any  little  shrimp  of  a  woman  snub  me,  as  you  did 
John  Eckels  to-day.  Such  a  splendid  fellow  as  he 
is,  too  !  " 

"  I  don't  think  you're  a  good  judge  of  men.  You 
threw  over  Harry  Porter." 

"  I  know  I— dud-dud-did  !  Ah,  hu  !  hu  !  hu  ! 
hu  !  hu  !  hu  !  I  wish  I  were  dead  !  " 

But,  surely,  no  such  conversation  ever  took  place; 
ever  could  have  taken  place. 

This  is  a  Book  of  Lies. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

LOVE    HATH     MURDERED    SLEEP. 

THE  birds  had  all  day  perversely  preferred  whole 
skins  and  freedom  to  the  honor  of  reposing  in  their 
game  bags,  and  the  detachment  of  travelers,  who 
had  been  tramping  the  Jersey  marshes,  were  reveng 
ing  themselves  over  their  steaming  glasses  by  tales 
of  achievement  in  past  campaigns. 

"The  most  remarkable  bag  recorded  in  the 
annals  of  my  memory,"  began  Dr.  Binninger,  "  was 
obtained  by  unsportsmanlike  methods,  which  were 
promptly  and  properly  punished.  It  was  in  1875, 
when  water  fowl  were  very  abundant.  Not  content 
with  slaughtering  wild  ducks  by  the  usual  methods, 
Harry  Jones,  of  Currituck,  procured  a  Gatling  gun 
and  loaded  the  cartridges  with  bird  shot.  Con 
cealing  himself  in  a  blind,  he  waited  until  a  large 
flock  approached  him  at  great  speed  with  a  favoring 
wind.  When  they  had  nearly  reached  him  he 
opened  fire.  The  destruction  was  terrible,  but 
such  was  the  impetus  of  the  birds  and  the  force  of 
the  wind  that  almost  the  entire  flock,  which  he  had 
slaughtered,  flopped  dying  upon  his  hiding-place, 

99 


IOO  THE   BOOK  OF  LIES. 

and,  beneath  their  mangled  bodies,  Jones  perished 
miserably  by  retributive  suffocation." 

"  I  know  a  fellow  named  Louis  Schrempp, 
St.  Louis,  had  great  luck  shooting  squirrels  one 
day  '79,"  said  Jim  Hart.  "Went  out  with 
gun,  Louis  did,  myself  and  two  dogs.  Presently 
dogs  began  spinning  *  round  'n'  'round  ;  kept  it  up 
till  fell  down  exhausted.  You  see,  so  many 
squirrel-tracks,  couldn't  tell  which  to  follow.  Then 
Schrempp  and  I  looked  up.  Trees  full  of  squirrels, 
I  was  utterly  useless.  Got  dizzy  watching  dogs 
whirl  about  ;  but  Schrempp  shot  away  all  his 
ammunition,  then  began  picking  shot  out  of  dead 
squirrels  to  begin  again." 

"  But,"  said  the  doctor,  "  he  couldn't—" 
"  No,  he  didn't.     Too  slow  altogether  ;  weather 
pretty  hot.     Gave  it  up.     Picked  up  157  squirrels, 
brought  me  and  the  dogs  to  our  senses — " 
"Yes?"  doubtfully  ;  by  all. 
" — To  our  senses  ;  then  went  home." 
"An  old  Indian, who  lives  in  Carson,  Pennsylvania, 
once  told  me  that  a  rattlesnake  will  always  range  him 
self  in  line  with  a  stick  or  gun  pointed  at  him,"  said 
Eckels.     "  This  peculiarity  makes   it  easy  for  even 
a  blind  man  to  shoot  one.     The  Indian  took  me  out 
with  him,  and  selected  a  nice  big  snake.     Whenever 


102  THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 

the  Indian  moved  his  gun,  the  snake  would  get 
in  line.  Finally  Lo  fired,  and  his  bullet  went  in  at 
the  snake's  mouth  and  passed  through  the  entire 
length  of  his  body.  Indians  have  no  imagination. 
I  wouldn't  have  wanted  to  do  what  he  did  with  the 
body.  In  the  dry  air  of  the  mountains,  flesh  doesn't 
decay,  but  dries  up  as  hard  as  a  brick.  The  Indian 
coiled  the  hollow  snake  up,  and  when  it  had  set  in 
that  shape  quite  hard,  he  used  it  for  the  '  worm  '  of 
a  moonshine  distillery  he  ran,  up  in  the  hills.  Ugh  ! 
No  wonder  the  fellows  who  drank  that  whiskey  saw 
snakes  ! " 

After  the  libation  suggested  by  the  thought  had 
been  carefully  swallowed,  Tom  Fenton  began  a 
reminiscence  of  travel. 

"  The  African  steamer  Winnebah,  on  which  I  was 
a  passenger  from  Liberia  to  Oporto,"  he  said,  "  had 
a  singular  passage,  in  which  sudden  alterations  in 
the  weather,  from  very  hot  to  very  cold,  preyed 
upon  the  superstitious  fears  of  the  sailors.  Off  the 
Morocco  coast,  the  ship  sailed  for  sixty  miles 
through  a  mass  of  locusts,  covering  the  water  to  a 
depth  of  several  inches.  Many  of  the  insects  were 
seven  inches  long.  They  had  been  blown  out  to 
sea  by  a  strong,  hot  wind,  and  a  sudden  cold  wave 
had  killed  them  all." 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  103 

"  The  stench  must  have  been  frightful  in  the  hot 
sun  of  those  latitudes,"  said  Dr.  Binninger. 

"Not  at  all.  The  cold  wind  which  killed  the 
insects  evidently  came  from  Labrador.  It  was,  at 
any  rate,  heavily  laden  with  powdered  lime  rock, 
which  lay  in  a  thick  dust  upon  the  bodies  and  acted 
as  a  disinfectant. 

"  The  propagation  of  insect  plagues  is  a  fascinat 
ing  study,"  Fenton  continued,  tossing  back  his 
theatrical  locks,  slightly  tinged  with  gray,  from  his 
pale,  fine  face.  "  In  the  town  of  Quantuck,  New 
Jersey,  which  lies  in  a  low,  hot  nook,  surrounded  by 
swampy  land,  the  mosquitoes  were  so  thick  in  the 
season  of  '83  that,  when  the  breeze  was  gentle,  they 
formed  a  thick,  black  cloud  over  the  town.  On 
several  occasions  this  was  so  noticeable  that  the 
hens  went  to  roost  at  noon,  under  the  impression 
that  it  was  already  nightfall,  and  without  perform 
ing  their  daily  task  of  egg-laying.  As  the  poultry 
business  is  a  leading  one  in  the  town,  the  fanciers 
suffered  for  a  time  considerable  financial  loss, 
until  the  device  was  hit  upon  of  sending  up  small 
dynamite  cartridges  among  the  thickest  swarms  of 
mosquitoes,  by  means  of  a  kite,  flown  by  a  wire, 
which,  at  the  right  moment,  conveyed  a  current  of 
electricity  to  discharge  the  dynamite.  After  a  few 


104  THE  BOOK   OF   LIES. 

discharges  the  air  would  be  so  clear  that  the  hens 
could  resume  operations,  and  the  gory  remains  of 
the  dead  mosquitoes,  falling  to  the  ground,  were 
plowed  in  as  fertilizer." 

"  The  modification  of  the  lower  animate  orders  by 
natural  causes  is  another  interesting  study,"  said 
Parker  Adams,  wearily  stretching  his  short  legs  to 
the  blaze.  "  It  is  well  known  that  heat  expands 
and  cold  contracts  ;  but  to  an  even  greater  extent 
rarefied  air  causes  expansion  of  soft  bodies  by 
relieving  them  of  a  portion  of  the  pressure  of  the 
air.  This  fact,  well  understood  by  balloomsts,  is 
illustrated  by  the  enormous  size  attained  by  the 
mosquitoes  on  the  top  of  Mount  Orizaba.  So  large 
have  these  become,  after  centuries  of  living  in  cool 
and  rarefied  air,  that  it  is  a  common  amusement  for 
rich  and  sporty  Mexicans  to  catch  and  train  two  of 
them,  and  pit  them  together  in  a  cage  like  wild 
animals.  The  ensuing  combats  are  described  as 
equaling,  in  intensity  of  terror,  the  fabled  tiger 
matches  of  Eastern  potentates,  although  of  course 
the  combatants  are  scarcely  larger  than  good- sized 
squirrels." 

u  The  intelligence  of  the  so-called  lower  animals 
frequently  puts  to  shame  man's  assumption  that  he 
is  the  only  reasoning  section  of  creation,"  said 


THE  BOOK   OF  LIES.  IO5 

Dr.  Binninger.  "  Robert  Hinckley,  of  Peoria,  has  a 
dog  which  has  an  unconquerable  aversion  to  getting 
wet.  Recently,  desiring  to  cross  the  river  to  save 
a  detour  of  several  miles,  this  intelligent  animal  set 
to  work  to  build  a  raft.  Dragging  stick  after  stick 
to  the  water's  edge,  he  laid  them  side  by  side, 
afterwards  crossing  them  with  others  until  he  had 
built  a  raft,  frail,  indeed,  but  amply  able  to  sustain 
him.  Then  he  pushed  the  raft  into  the  water  and 
jumped  on.  Paddling  with  fore  and  hind  paws,  he 
soon  propelled  himself  across.  Nor  did  the  animal's 
foresight  end  even  here,  for,  carefully  towing  the 
raft  to  a  little  bay,  he  secured  it,  until  his  return,  by 
laying  one  end  of  a  fence  rail  upon  it. 

"  Quite  as  cunning,  was  a  cat  I  once  owned,  which 
habitually  provided  herself  with  a  meat  breakfast 
by  littering  bread  crumbs  and  burying  herself  in  the 
snow  until  the  snowbirds  came  to  peck  at  them, 
when  she  leaped  forth  and  smote  them  with  trium 
phant  paw.  This  instance  of  sagacity  is  quite  sur 
passed  by  a  cow  in  Oxford,  Mississippi,  which  saved 
herself  from  freezing  to  death,  during  one  of  the 
frequent  blizzards  in  that  state,  by  swallowing  a 
lump  of  freshly-burned  lime  and  industriously 
chewing  snow.  The  lime,  in  the  process  of  slaking, 
kept  the  cow  warm,  while  all  the  rest  of  the  herd 


IO6  THE  BOOK   OF  LIES. 

perished.  A  severe  fit  of  indigestion  was  the  only 
untoward  result  of  the  stomach-load  of  whitewash." 

"  I  wonder  how  you  happened  to  miss  that  shot  to 
day,  Fenton,"  said  Parker  Adams,  rather  irrelevantly. 

"  In  Fannin  County,  Georgia,  there  still  survive 
large  numbers  of  wild  turkeys,"  said  Fenton,  hastily, 
affecting  not  to  have  heard  the  remark  ;  "  Milton 
Ganthony  recently  discovered  an  enormous  flock  of 
these  in  the  Splay  woods,  and,  having  no  gun,  was 
at  a  loss  how  to  improve  the  occasion.  Finally  he 
happened  to  recall  that  he  had  a  red  bandanna 
handkerchief,  which  he  tied  to  a  twig  and  then 
withdrew,  uttering  a  turkey  call.  '  When  the 
splendid  birds  came  and  saw  the  handkerchief,  they 
began  fighting  with  each  other  fiercely  about  the 
meteor  flag.  When  the  war  had  gone  far  enough, 
which  wasn't  until  Ganthony  thought  there  were 
as  many  dead  turkeys  as  he  could  dispose  of,  he 
shooed  off  the  combatants.  Besides  a  good  wagon 
load  of  turkey  meat,  already  plucked,  he  got  loose 
feathers  enough  to  make  573  turkey-tail  fans." 

"  Ganthony  was  more  of  a  hunter  than  you  are, 
at  any  rate,"  said  Adams,  returning  to  the  attack. 
"  For  my  part,  I  find  sport  at  the  present  day  too 
tame.  I'd  like  to  have  lived  in  the  old  times  when 
animals  were  sure  enough  big  ones.  You  know,  of 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  IO/ 

course,  that  Montana  was  formerly  inhabited  by  a 
race  of  prehistoric  buffaloes.  Ephraim  Rogers,  a 
well-known  Butte  trapper,  owes  to  this  fact  his  life. 
While  out  of  reach  of  his  rifle,  Eph  was  chased 
by  a  grizzly.  It  was  on  a  bleak  and  desolate  plain 
and  no  tree  was  within  miles.  Suddenly  Eph  espied 
a  hollow  buffalo  horn  of  enormous  size,  into -the  butt 
end  of  which  he  dived  in  desperation.  On  came  the 
bear  after  him.  Eph  is  a  man  of  slender  build, 
while  the  bear's  head  and  shoulders  were  very 
massive,  so  that  while  the  former  easily  crawled 
out  of  the  little  end  of  the  horn,  it  was  carried 
off  by  the  blinded  and  infuriated  bear,  who  could 
not  dislodge  it  from  his  head.  That  night  a 
mining-camp  thirty-seven  miles  from  the  scene  of 
the  adventure  was  put  into  a  panic  by  the  apparition 
of  an  animal  of  curious  appearance  which,  when 
shot,  proved  to  be  no  other  than  Roger's  late 
antagonist,  still  firmly  fixed  in  its  extinguisher 
of  buffalo  bone,  and  unable  to  see  where  it  was 
going." 

"  By  the  way,"  said  Dr.  Binninger,  "  speaking  of 
buffaloes  reminds  me  of  the  proposition  to  replace 
the  buffalo  upon  the  Western  plains  by  the  hardy, 
edible,  domesticable,  acclimatable  and  philoprogeni 
tive  kangaroo.  Old  travelers  in  Australia  can 


108  THE   BOOK   OF  LIES. 

recall  numerous  instances  of  the  cunning  of  these 
marsupials.  In  the  Karaboo  diggings,  in  the  summer 
of  1887,  a  gathering  of  kangaroos  came  to  the  bank 
of  the  Waroo  River,  and  began  figuring  how  to  get 
across.  Presently  one  of  the  smallest  and  lightest 
went  back  from  the  bank  a  little  way,  and  several 
big  fellows  ranged  themselves  in  line.  Down  came 
the  little  one,  leap  after  leap,  and,  as  he  reached  the 
line,  each  of  the  others  in  turn  gave  him  a  tremen 
dous  kick  until,  with  the  last  one's  final  boost,  his 
momentum  became  so  great  that  he  landed  dry  shod 
upon  the  further  bank.  Here  he  shoved  a  farmer's 
boat  into  the  water,  and  after  that  all  was  easy, 
the  entire  party  crossing  the  river  in  about  seven 
trips. 

"Those  who  know  the  habits  of  the  kangaroos 
regard  them  as  man's  chief  friend.  When  lost 
upon  the  arid  Australian  plain,  miles  from  visible 
water,  the  prospector  or  herdsman  always  hails 
with  delight  the  appearance  of  a  kangaroo  well. 

"  The  kangaroos,  when  they  wish  to  dig  a  well, 
gather  in  numbers  and  mark  out  a  circle  of  about 
three  feet  in  diameter.  Then  each  in  turn  runs  and 
jumps  into  the  circle  landing  stiff-legged — ker- 
chug  ! — upon  his  hind  feet.  In  this  way  the  hole 
is  sunk  lower  and  lower,  precisely  as  a  drill  sinks 


THE  BOOK  OP  LIES.  109 

into  a  rock  with  each  successive  blow.  The  loose 
dirt  is  brought  out,  from  time  to  time,  in  the  pouches 
of  the  diggers.  A  well  has  seldom  to  be  sunk  more 
than  eighteen  feet  to  strike  water,  and  at  that  depth 
it  is  an  easy  thing  for  a  kangaroo  to  jump  in  and 
out  again,  though,  in  the  case  of  a  very  deep  well, 
there  is  sometimes  a  platform  half  way. 

"  I  never  suffered  from  thirst  in  my  life,"  Dr.  Bin- 
ninger  went  on  ;  "  thirst  for  water,  I  mean.  I  do 
not  know  what  the  sensation  is.  But  a  hunter  may 
face  perils  as  deadly  in  hunting  squirrels  in  the 
Maine  woods  as  in  the  heart  of  Africa.  Once,  under 
conditions  such  as  I  have  described,  I  reached 
up  my  gun  barrel  to  knock  a  lump  of  spruce  gum 
from  a  tree  trunk.  The  gum  lodged  in  the  muzzle 
of  the  gun,  and  thoughtlessly,  though  the  day  was 
very  cold,  I  attempted  to  pick  the  gum  off  with  my 
teeth.  Instantly  my  wet  lips  and  tongue  froze  to 
the  barrel,  causing  me  the  most  excruciating  agony. 
I  was  far  from  home,  and  it  was  difficult  to  walk  in 
the  constrained  position  rendered  necessary  by  the 
gun.  .  Finally,  as  I  stumbled  through  the  bushes, 
the  hammer  of  the  gun  caught  and  it  exploded. 
My  first  thought  was  :  <  Well,  my  brains  are  blown 
out  and  I  must  be  dead.'  But  I  was  not  only  alive 
but  sound,  and  released  from  the  gun.  The  severe 


1 10  THE  BOOK   OF  LIES. 

cold  had  so  contracted  the  barrel  that  the  bullet, 
heated  and  expanded  by  the  burning  powder,  could 
travel  only  about  eighteen  inches  toward  the  muzzle, 
where  it  stuck  fast.  The  breech  of  the  gun  simply 
blew  out.  The  heat  generated  by  the  friction  and 
explosion  of  the  bullet  a  moment  later  warmed  the 
gun-barrel  just  enough  to  release  my  frozen  lips 
from  the  kiss  of  death." 

"  Extreme  cold  weather  brings  many  dangers," 
said  Fenton.  "I  was  once  in  Kansas  at  a  time 
when  a  crack  in  the  earth  was  opened  by  the  com 
bined  action  of  extreme  heat  on  the  inside  and 
extreme  cold  on  the  outside.  This  fissure,  which 
was  situated  near  Union  Star,  was  only  about  five 
inches  wide,  but  emitted  a  smell  like  burning  wool 
at  least  a  yard  wide.  The  people  of  the  neighbor 
hood  tried  at  first  to  fill  the  fissure  by  throwing  in 
various  substances,  but  desisted  upon  hearing  a 
faintly  echoing  voice  ascend  one  day,  freighted 

with  the  query  :  '  What  the are  you  doing  up 

there  !  I'm  from  Kansas  myself.  Stop  throwing 
them  stones  ! '  " 

Sleep  comes  soon  to  eyelids  weighted  with  fatigue. 
One  by  one  the  men  about  the  fire  nodded,  and 
slipped  away  to  bed,  and  presently  Eckels  and 
Harry  Porter  found  themselves  alone. 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  Ill 

"  You  made  quite  a  hit  at  the  reception,  Porter," 
said  Eckels,  presently.  "That  Curtis  girl  was 
visibly  impressed  by  your  wisdom.  How  in  thunder 
did  you  manage  it?" 

"  Simply  by  following  your  admirable  advice.  I 
thought  up  some  brilliant  sayings  myself,  and  copied 
some  more  out  of  a  newspaper  and  memorized  them 
all.  Then  the  other  day,  when  I  saw  that  Ann  was 
listening,  I  just  got  them  off  one  after  another, 
whether  they  fitted  into  the  conversation  or  not. 
And,  by  George,  they  didn't  know  the  difference  ! " 

"  I  should  say  not ! "  said  Eckels,  ironically  ; 
"  The  blue  girl  halfway  fell  in  love  with  you  then  and 
there,  and  Ann  came  to  the  conclusion  that  you're 
a  deep  and  dangerous  person  in  need  of  reforma 
tion.  Of  course  that  settled  her.  You're  all  right 
if  you'll  only  be  patient.  But  did  you  see  the 
Prince  of  Wales  frost  I  got  ? " 

te  Don't  be  discouraged,  Jack  ;  follow  your  own 
advice.  And  now  I  think  it's  high  time  you  told 
me  what  to  do  next.  Isn't  the  field  right  for  a 
direct  attack  ? " 

"No,  not  yet ;  but  I  will  tell  you." 

And  the  fire  burned  lower  yet  before  the  two  men 
sought  their  belated  beds. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

A   WANDERER    FROM    THE    WRATH. 

A  NUMBER  of  men  from  the  Travelers'  Club  had 
stopped  in  the  barber's  shop  on  Fulton  street,  one 
day  in  early  Spring,  and  the  barber  made  the  dis 
covery  that  Parker  Adams  was  becoming  bald. 

"  I  have  here,  "  he  said  "  a  tonic  that—" 

u  Tonics  are  a  crude  substitute  for  the  resources 
which  science  is  now  able  to  bring  to  the  relief  of 
bald  men,"  said  Dr.  Binninger. 

"  Wear  a  wig  ? "  asked  the  barber. 

"  f  do  not,  sir;  "  and  Dr.  Binninger  deftly  adjusted 
it  under  guise  of  scratching  his  head  ;  "  nor  do  I 
now  refer  to  wigs  at  all.  I  have  read,  however,  an 
American  item  to  the  effect  that  both  wigs  and 
tonics  are  quite  out  of  fashion  in  France,  even 
among  the  entirely  bald.  Holes  are  made  in  the 
head  with  a  gimlet,  and  each  hair  inserted  separately 
and  soldered  in  its  place.  The  process  is  said  to  be 
extremely  soothing,  and  the  result  is  charming,  the 
metallic  hue  of  the  solder  gleaming  gaudily  through 
the  surrounding  stubble." 

"  How  know  its  American  ? "  demanded  Jim  Hart. 

" Because  I  saw  it  in  the  London  Million"   said 

112 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  113 

the  big  doctor,  shortly.  "  I  am  reminded  by  my 
surroundings  that  a  unique  occupation  for  lazy 
men  has  been  invented  by  a  Denver  barber,  who  has 
a  wonderful  patent  hair  restorer,  which  I  myself 
once  used,  and  to  whose  aid  I  owe  the  remarkable 
preservation  of  my  natural  covering.  He  hires  a 
number  of  ex-clergymen,  who  have  left  the  East  on 
account  of  chronic  ministerial  sore  throat,  to  sit  in 
armchairs  all  day  long  and  grow  heads  of  hair. 
The  tonic  is  applied  three  times  a  day,  and  the 
clergymen  are  shorn  once  a  weak.  The  hair  is 
made  up  on  the  spot  by  expert  wig-makers,  and  the 
refuse  is  used  for  cushion  stuffing.  The  wages 
paid  range  from  $9  to  $16  a  week,  and  found,  and 
afford  the  rarest  opportunity  to  combine  recupera 
tive  leisure  with  remunerative  industry,  which  it  has 
been  my  good  fortune  to  observe." 

Here  a  slight  commotion  was  observed  in  the 
rear  of  the  room,  where  a  colored  bootblack  had 
established  his  stand.  The  operator  thereat  had 
knelt  on  his  own  footstool  and,  with  his  face  buried 
in  his  hands,  was  quivering  violently. 

"That  boy's  back  looks  familiar,"  said  Dr.  Bin- 
ninger,  reflectively  ;  "  looks  like  a  likely  boy  I  used 
to  know,  Bill  Coons  of  Canton,  Arkansas.  Coons 
and  a  man  named  Bargelt  were  taking  a  short  cut 


114  THE  BOOK 'OF  LIES. 

through  the  woods  recently,  hauling  on  a  stoneboata 
windlass  they  were  intending  to  use  in  digging  a  well 
on  the  Milt  Jones  place.  Passing  a  big,  hollow  tree, 
Bargelt  saw  a  'possum  tail  in  the  opening,  and  tried 
to  pull  the  beast  out,  but  met  with  unexpected 
resistance.  It  is  well-known  by  old  hunters  that  a 
number  of  opossums  treed  under  such  circumstances 
will  cling  closely  to  each  other  to  defeat  the  efforts 
of  the  hunter. 

"  'Set  up  the  win'lass  while  I  hoi'  on  !'  shouted 
Bargelt. 

"  In  about  ten  minutes  Coons  had  the  windlass 
stoutly  pegged  out,  and  the  well -rope  was  noosed 
round  the  hind  quarters  of  the  only  'possum  in 
sight.  But,  strain  as  they  might  at  the  windlass 
crank,  the  two  men  could  not  make  the  'possums 
budge. 

"  Now,  thoroughly  excited,  they  tackled  the  old 
horse  to  the  windlass  crank,  and  by  uniting  their 
efforts  with  his,  they  had  presently  hauled  out  of  the 
tree  a  long  rope  of  'possums,  each  of  which  clung  to 
the  next  one  by  winding  his  tail  'round  his  neck. 
After  their  manner,  the  'possums  feigned  death 
until  the  last  one  had  been  killed  with  clubs,  when 
they  were  loaded  on  the  stoneboat  for  transportation 
home.  There  were  137  of  them  in  all,  yielding 


THE   BOOK   OF   LIES.  1 15 

about  T,OOO  pounds  of  meat,  which  sold  readily  for 
seven  and  one-half  cents  a  pound,  net.  The  skins 
were  worth  twenty-three  cents  apiece." 

The  boot-black  now  shook  so  violently  that  the 
chair  rattled. 

"Sick,  Henry?"  asked  a  journeyman  barber, 
with  pompadour  hair  and  a  horseshoe  scarfpin. 

There  was  no  answer. 

"  Ah,  t'ell  wi'  the  coon  ! "  judicially  observed  the 
head  barber.  "  Next !  " 

"  The  Southwest  is  indeed  a  land  of  surprises," 
said  Dr.  Binninger.  "  For  instance,  the  skill  of 
the  vaqueros  is  marvelous.  Juan  Fernandez,  of 
Santa  Fe,  was  crossing  the  prairie  recently,  when 
he  was  met  by  a  ferocious  bull.  At  a  critical  moment 
his  horse  thrust  its  foot  into  a  prairie  dog  hole 
and  fell,  leaving  Juan  on  foot.  Just  as  the  bull 
was  thundering  down  upon  him  in  the  charge, 
an  opportune  whirlwind  passed  near  the  scene,  and 
was  instantly  lassoed  by  Fernandez.  It  whirled 
him  away  in  a  cloud  of  dust  and  dried  grass,  and, 
in  a  moment,  he  was  far  out  of  reach  of  the  bull  and 
headed  nearly  straight  for  home.  Here,  boy  !  "  the 
.doctor  continued,  walking  back  to  the  kneeling  figure 
at  the  boot-black's  chair,  "  Wake  up,  there  !  I  want 
a  shine  ! " 


THE  BOOK   OF  LIES. 


With  a  howl  of  terror,  the  boot-black  darted  toward 
the  open  door,  his  face  livid,  his  limbs  quaking. 
"  Here,   George  !    Henry  !    Charles  !      Abraham 

Lincoln  ! "  shouted  the 
doctor.  "There,  he's 
gone.  Did  you  see  who 
that  was  ?  By  the  im 
mortal  George  Wash 
ington,  that  was  Jhe  very 
boy  who  ran  away  from 
the  club  !  Now,  what 
can  be  the  matter  this 
time  ?  Why  such  pre 
cipitate  haste  to  es 
cape?" 

"  Aw,don't  mind  'im," 
remarked  the  head  bar 
ber  ;  "  Vs  nutty.  'E's 
full  o'dope.  'E's  bug 
house,  sure.  'E  ain't 
been  a  thing  but  scared 
of  'is  shadder  ever  sin' 
'e  come  'ere.  James, 
chase  out  V  git  a  boy  to  shine  up  th'  gent.  It's 
good  tonic,  all  right,  all  right." 

"  Most  curious  how  that  boy  acted,"  mused  Dr. 


THE   BOOK   OF  LIES.  1 17 

Binninger  ;  "  but  speaking  of  baldness,  did  you 
ever  reflect  upon  its  cause  and  cure,  and  upon  the 
erroneous  notions  current  concerning  it  ?  Some  say 
it  is  due  to  the  excessive  eating  of  meat,  but  its 
more  likely  to  result  from  worrying  about  how  to 
pay  for  the  meat.  It  cannot  be  due  to  wearing  hats, 
for  the  hatless  Romans  and  Greeks  were  frequently 
bald  ;  nor  to  a  wicked  and  ill-spent  life,  for  the 
bald  theological  student  and  fierce  and  hairy  train 
robber  disprove  any  such  theory.  Painters  wear 
long  hair,  yet  frequently  represent  the  saints  and 
apostles  as  bald.  There  are  no  bald  heads  in  luna 
tic  asylums.  The  whirring  of  wheels  in  the  brain 
seems  favorable  to  productiveness  of  hair  on  the 
scalp.  I  wish  I  knew  to  what  cause  to  attribute  the 
erratic  behavior  of  that  boy." 

"  Aw'  'e's  dotty.  'E  sees  'em  again,"  said  the 
head  barber.  "  Is  this  an  open  game?  Kin  I  come 
in?" 

"  If  you  stand  pat,"  said  Hart. 

"  Say,"  said  the  barber,  continuing  his  deft  strokes 
as  he  spoke.  "  This  bald  business  is  queer,  all 
right,  all  right.  I'm  a  farmer,  that's  right.  Come 
from  Island  Falls,  Maine.  The'  was  a  big  tannery 
there  ;  used  up  600  hides  a  day.  Say,  the  water  in 
the  tan  pit  was  a  hair  tonic.  That's  right.  Sprout 


Il8  THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 

the  hair  on  a  billiard  ball  in  three  applications.  Say, 
the  baldies  use'  to  come  a  hundred  miles  to  souse 
the  tan  pickle  on  their  cocos.  Then  they  stopped 
all  at  once  ;  found  out  the  new  hair  was  growing  in 
red,  brindle,  black  and  white,  any  old  color.  Say, 
it  was  jes'  like  the  cow's  hair  been  soaked  off  in  the 
pit.  Say,  that's  about  when  I  lit  out.  Place  too 
big  to  hold  me.  Say,  good  old  New  York  ain't  in 
it  wit'  no  Island  Falls.  I  guess  nit  !  " 

"Your  custom  of  expressing  a  proposition  by 
affirming  its  negative  makes  your  narrative  difficult 
to  follow,"  said  Dr.  Binninger,  "  but  it  seems  a  most 
worthy  and  interesting  one." 

"The  mention  of  Maine  reminds  me,"  said  Tom 
Fenton,  "  of  a  cat  named  Fanny,  owned  by  a  lady 
in  Thomaston  in  that  state.  This  cat  had  kittens, 
as  cats  named  Fanny  frequently  do.  Hearing  her 
mistress  remark  that  the  kittens  must  all  be  drowned, 
Fanny  removed  them  one  day  to  a  safe  hiding-place. 
After  a  day  or  two  she  brought  them  back  to  the 
mistress  with  an  air  of  triumph.  It  was  then  seen 
that  she  had,  with  teeth  and  claws,  torn  to  pieces  an 
old  canvas  and  cork  life-preserver,  and  had  fastened 
a  piece  of  cork  around  each  kitten's  neck.  Moved 
to  pity  by  the  sight,  the  mistress  said  :  '  Fannie,  not 
one  of  your  kittens  shall  ever  be  hurt/  At  this  the 


THE   BOOK   OF  LIES.  119 

intelligent  mother  took  off  the  bits  of  cork  and  went 
to  sleep  in  perfect  confidence. 

"  The  intelligence  of  animals  is  sometimes  won 
derful.  There  is  a  girl  in  Murfreesboro,  Tennessee, 
whom  I  know  very  well,  as  she  is  engaged  to  a 
friend,  who  has  a  musical  cat,  trained  by  patient 
practice  to  sing  the  popular  songs  of  the  day  to  the 
lively  accompaniment  of  the  banjo.  '  Ben  Bolt '  is 
Kitty's  favorite,  but  it  is  as  good  as  a  show  to  see 
her  march  out  of  the  room  with  a  distended  tail  and 
air  of  offended  dignity  when  the  chords  of  «  Say 
Au  revoir,  but  not  Goodby/  begin  to  smite  the  air." 

"  If  animals  cannot  reason,"  said  Dr.  Binninger, 
"  their  inborn  instincts  frequently  seem  to  differ 
from  reason  in  nothing  save  that  they  are  even 
more  shrewd.  A  Manx  cat  of  the  gentler  sex, 
residing  in  Oshkosh,  was  recently  confronted  by  the 
necessity  of  saving  four  kittens  from  a  spring  flood 
which  menaced  their  home.  There  was  no  time  to 
take  them,  one  by  one,  to  a  place  of  safety.  But 
not  for  an  instant  did  the  intelligent  animal  hesitate. 
Leaping  high  from  the  floor,  she  knocked  down 
from  its  hook  a  cap  worn  at  school  by  the  boy  of 
the  household,  and  this  she  placed  bottom  up  on 
the  ground.  Then,  placing  the  kittens  in  it,  one  by 
one,  she  seized  the  visor  in  her  teeth  and  hurried 


120  THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 

away  to  a  place  of  safety,  dragging  after  her  her 
extemporized  baby  carriage. 

"  The  mention  of  cats  naturally  reminds  me  of 
their  hereditary  foes,  mice  and  rats,  which  are 
animals  quite  as  shrewd.  It  is  a  fact  well  known  to 
scientists  that  even  the  lower  forms  of  nature  follow 
to  some  extent  the  peculiarities  of  the  men  with 
whom  they  are  thrown.  Naturally  in  Connecticut, 
where  men  are  wise  beyond  the  ways  of  their  kind 
elsewhere,  lesser  beasts  have  also  wisdom  of  a  high 
order.  A  mouse  —  this  happened  in  Norwich  — 
which,  I  am  told,  is  pronounced  by  the  inhabitants 
so  that  it  rhymes  with  « porridge  ' — finding  himself 
caught  in  one  of  those  traps  from  which  egress  is 
discouraged  by  a  chevaux  de  frise  of  pointed  wires, 
spied,  on  the  floor,  near  the  trap,  a  piece  of  stout 
string  and  a  toothpick.  Painfully  he  succeeded  in 
clawing  them  into  the  cage,  and,  looping  the  string 
about  one  of  the  wires,  he  attached  the  other  end 
snugly  to  the  wall  at  one  side.  Then,  applying  the 
toothpick  in  the  manner  of  the  stick  in  a  tourniquet, 
he  twisted  the  string  until  the  fibre  torsion  bent  the 
pointed  wire  back  out  of  the  way.  Another  and 
another  of  the  wires  was  similarly  treated,  until 
escape  was  easy,  when  the  mouse  took  his  leave,  the 
tourniquet  remaining  to  testify  to  his  shrewdness. 


THE   BOOK  OF   LIES.  121 

Unaided  by  this  device,  a  dozen  mice  could  not 
have  bent  a  single  wire." 

"  Done  !  "  said  the  fortuitous  boot-black,  who  had 
been  brought  in  from  the  street  to  polish  the  doctor's 
vast  boots. 

"Ah,  a  very  excellent  polish  !"  said  the  doctor, 
fumbling  in  his  pocket.  "  Now,  where  the  mischief 
— by  Jove,  I — ah,  thanks  !  thanks  ! "  For  the  re 
turned  miner,  noticing  his  plight,  had  thrust  a  dime 
into  the  boot-black's  hand. 

"  I  really  wonder  what  ailed  that  ridiculous  boy," 
said  Fenton. 

"  It  is  indeed  most  mysterious/'  said  Dr.  Binnin- 
ger.  "  Were  it  not  that  every  colored  boy  instinc 
tively  recognizes  a  Southern  gentleman  of  the  old 
school  as  his  natural  friend  and  protector,  I  should 
almost  have  said  that  he  was  terrified  by  the  sight 
of  me.  I  shall  never  rest  until  the  mystery  is 
solved." 

"  'F  I  see  'im  I'll  drop  y'  th'  tip,"  said  the  head 
barber.  "  Next  !  " 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE    FISH    AND    HIS  LIE   ARE   NEVER   PARTED. 

"  YES,"  said  Dr.  Binninger,  "  trout  fishing  is  very 
well  for  mere  amusement ;  "  but  I  have  seen  con 
tests  with  the  scaly  folk  so  much  more  exciting  that 
I  almost  wonder  at  myself  for  displaying  such 
interest  in  the  day's  doings.  It  is  the  sporting 
instinct,  gentlemen.  I  suppose  I  should  kill  flies  if 
I  couldn't  get  at  lions." 

It  was  mid-April  and  St.  Trout's  day.  Several  of 
the  Travelers  had  been  whipping  the  brook  which 
ran  through  the  preserves  of  a  country  club  that 
counted  most  of  them  as  members  ;  and  they  had 
ceased  to  catch  fish  only  to  eat  fish  :  and  ceased  to 
eat  them  only  to  talk  about  them. 

14  What  was  the  best  fishing  you  ever  saw,  Doc  ? " 
asked  Eckels. 

"  Hem  !  I  am  not  altogether  accustomed  to  the 
abbreviation  of  my  scientific  title,  but  I  will  overlook 
the  matter  in  consideration — " 

"No  offense  intended,  doctor,"  murmured  Eckels. 

"Ah,  quite  so.  Don't  mention  it,  my  dear  boy. 
But  to  return  to  the  query  :  the  best  fishing,  or  at 
least,  the  most  plentiful  catching  of  fish,  I  have 

122 


THE   BOOK  OF  LIES.  .      123 

ever  witnessed  was  in  Manitoba.  When  mellow 
autumn  gilds  the  valleys  in  that  far  northern  clime, 
the  wild  grapes,  which  grow  along  the  banks  of  the 
streams,  ungathered,  fall,  over-ripe  and  fermenting, 
by  tons  into  the  water,  transforming  every  stream 
for  the  time  being  into  a  fair  sample  of  toddy.  It 
is  at  these  periods  that  such  of  the  farmers  as 
retain  command  of  their  legs  are  accustomed  to 
pick  out  dead-drunken  fish  with  their  bare  hands  to 
salt  down  for  winter,  and  I  can  assure  you,  suh, 
that  fish  so  cured  in  the  fumes  of  the  gentle  juices 
of  the  grape,  dying  as  it  were  in  the  odor  of  sanctity, 
are,  even  in  the  salted  state,  food  fit  for  the  gods." 

"  Was  in  Ardmore,  Pennsylvania,  once,"  said 
Jim  Hart.  "  Noticed  alder  bushes  along  stream  all 
barked  and  dying.  Asked  friend  why  this  thus. 
Carp  so  thick  and  eager,  jumped  out  of  water  after 
flies,  bit  bushes,  gnawed  bark  off,  bushes  dead  for 
miles." 

"The  German  carp  is  indeed  a  voracious  and 
hardy  fish,"  said  Dr.  Binninger.  "  Recent  long  and 
frequent  droughts  in  Western  Kansas  and  Nebraska 
have  proved  the  German  carp  to  be  a  fish  of  peculiar 
adaptability  and  versatility.  When  the  streams 
have  dried  up,  the  carp  have  taken  to  burrowing  in 
the  mud  at  the  bottom  to  avoid  the  farmers'  boys, 


124      •  THE   BOOK   OF   LIES. 

who  come  with  baskets  to  pick  'em  up  ;  but  it's  hard 
beating  a  Kansas  farmer.  They  soon  discovered 
that  by  plowing  the  river  and  lake  bottoms,  and  by 
running  a  potato-digging  machine  along  the  furrows, 
they  could  harvest  carp  by  the  wagon  load  with 
very  little  trouble,  and  the  discovery  has  fairly 
revolutionized  the  fish  industry  of  the  middle 
western  states. 

'•The  fish,"  the  big  doctor  went  on,  leisurely 
puffing  a  very  strong  black  cigar,  "  has  often  been 
maligned  by  so-called  scientists  who  have  held  him 
to  be  a  low  organization,  incapable  of  arduous 
thought.  Of,  late,  however,  his  character  has  been 
rescued  by  other  scientists  of  better-standing  and 
greater  accuracy,  who,  reasoning  from  wider  data, 
have  arrived  at  a  different  conclusion.  Hem  !  per 
haps  modesty  should  prevent  my  speaking  in  this 
strain  ;  hence  I  will  merely  relate  a  little  incident  of 
a  fisherman  who  went  down  into  Lake  Keuka  in 
ships  of  the  skiff  variety  in  order  to  fish,  trailing  a 
jug  of  bait  behind  the  boat  to  keep  cool.  He  was 
twice  annoyed  by  having  his  jugs  broken,  which,  of 
course,  put  an  end  to  the  fishing  for  the  day.  On 
the  second  occasion  when  this  occurred,  the  fisher 
man,  soon  after,  saw  a  large  fish  swimming  about 
near  the  surface  in  a  lazy  and  irresolute  sort  of  way. 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  12$ 

He  rowed  up  to  the  fish,  and,  to  his  surprise,  was 
able  to  pick  it  up  in  his  hands.  The  fish  was  per 
fectly  sound,  but  had  rather  more  color  than  usual, 
and  its  breath  smelled  strongly  of  alcohol. 

"  This  gave  the  astute  fisherman  an  idea.  Next 
day  he  trailed  behind  his  boat  a  jug,  wherein  the 
lure  was  cunningly  commingled  with  opium.  Hid 
in  the  stern  of  the  boat,  while  another  rowed,  he 
kept  sharp  watch.  Presently  he  saw  a  number  of 
monstrous  fish  approach,  bearing  on  their  noses  a 
stone  they  had  evidently  rooted  out  of  the  lake 
bottom.  One  sharp  crack  from  this  broke  the  jug, 
when  the  thieves  eagerly  drank  up  the  liquid  as  it 
mingled  with  the  surrounding  water.  Shortly  after 
ward  a  number  of  the  finest  fish  ever  seen  on  the 
lake  floated  on  the  top  in  their  opium  dream  of  bliss 
and  were  captured." 

"  I  think  you  must  be  right  about  the  possession 
of  intellect  by  fish,"  added  Tom  Fenton  ;  "and 
though  I  lay  no  claim  to  rank  as  a  scientist,  I  can 
adduce  an  interesting  tale  showing  the  possession  by 
a  fish  of  a  high  degree  of  moral  rectitude.  There 
have  been  very  many  cases  where  fishes  have  been 
caught,  in  whose  capacious  maws  were  found  long 
missing  rings,  necklaces,  baseball  masks,  and  such 
like  trifles.  Once  in  a  great  while  a  thieving  fish  is 


126  THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 

stricken  by  its  conscience  into  a  desire  to  make  res 
titution.  Such  a  fish  was  the  giant  cat,  which  lay 
watching  the  shore  of  the  turbid  Kaw  all  through 
the  month  of  April,  1879  or  1880,  I  am  not  quite 
sure  which.  Many  fishermen  tried  to  land  him,  but 
he  contemptuously  refused  the  most  tempting  lures, 
until  a  tall  man  of  striking  personal  appearance  came 
one  day  and  cast  his  tackle  on  the^waters.  The  big 
cat  leaped  from  the  water  and  fell  at  his  feet  with 
out  waiting  for  hook  and  line.  The  tall  man  was 
astounded.  On  cutting  open  the  fish  afterward,  he 
discovered  a  gold  eagle,  which  he  had  lost  a  year  be 
fore,  lying  in  the  fish's  stomach.  Most  wonderful 
of  all,  there  were  besides  sixty  copper  cents,  one 
year's  legal  interest,  which  the  noble  fish  had  yielded 
up  its  life  in  trying  to  restore  with  the  principal." 

"  To  return  to  the  more  strictly  scientific  aspects 
of  the  question,"  said  Dr.  Binninger,  " — not  but 
that  the  moral  problem  is  highly  interesting — I 
should  like  to  speak  briefly  of  the  aesthetic  rather 
than  the  ethical  side  of  the  piscine  nature.  Until 
some  recent  discoveries  by  Prof.  Saussier  of  Vevey, 
Switzerland,  it  was  not  suspected  that  fishes  were 
affected  by  music.  In  a  shallow  inlet  Prof.  Saus 
sier  found,  not  long  ago,  a  queer  arrangement  of 
strings  in  the  water  which  demanded  examination. 


THE   BOOK   OF   LIES. 


Viewing  the  affair  from  a  distance  with  a  water  tele 
scope,  he  saw  that  some  fishes,  which  had,  by  the 
usual  painful  method,  gained  possession  of  several 
fragments  of  fish-line,  were  passing  them  around  two 
sticks  thrust  into  the  water  by  some  fisherman. 
When  the  strings  were  strung  the  stakes  were 
wedged  apart  by  piling  stones  between  them  so  as 
to  tighten  the  strings,  three  or  four  fishes  rolling  a 
stone  along  the  bottom  with  their  noses. 

"  The  operation  was  necessarily  slow.  The  pro 
fessor  watched  it  at  intervals  for  two  or  three  days. 
Finally,  when  all  was  ready,  the  largest  fish  seized 
a  stick  or  bone,  and,  using  it  as  a  plectrum,  twanged 
the  strings  with  it,  while  the  other  fishes  gathered 
around  to  hear  the  music.  -Of  course  there  was 
none,  as  the  submerged  strings  refused  to  sound. 
After  several  trials,  the  fishes  tore  up  their  water  lyre 
in  disgust.  They  had  probably  caught  their  idea 
from  Atme*e  Saussier,  the  professor's  daughter,  who 
was  in  the  habit  of  playing  a  harp  by  the  bank." 

"  Speaking  of  gigantic  fish,"  said  Tom  Fenton, 
"  I  well  remember  going  up  the  Ohio  in  a  kick-be 
hind  steamer  one  hot  day  in  August  last  year.  The 
river  was  so  low  that  the  sun  rose  at  1  1  A.  M.  and 
set  at  2.  It  was  like  a  canyon.  At  one  of  the  low 
est  places  I  saw  an  enormous  catfish,  weighing  prob- 


128  THE   BOOK   OF  LIES. 

ably  500  pounds,  lying  near  a  sand-bar  which 
stretched  right  across  the  river.  A  moment  after 
the  steamer  passed,  the  wave  from  the  wheel  reached 
the  big  cat  and  he  floated  over  the  bar.  There 
hadn't  been  water  enough  before  to  float  him.  Af 
terward  I  learned  in  Pittsburg,  that  many  attempts 
had  been  made  to  capture  the  fish  by  wading  parties. 
But  whenever  a  number  of  men  rolled  up  their  trou 
sers  and  waded  in  to  attempt  his  discomfiture,  the 
big  fish  would  use  his  fins  to  roll  himself  over  and 
over  like  a  log,  and  so  escape.  After  two  men  had 
had  legs  broken  by  trying  to  stop  the  rolling  fish,  the 
attempt  was  given  up.  Once,  when  the  fish  was 
asleep,  a  steamer  struck  him  and  was  nearly  wrecked. 
Some  of  the  scales  were  bumped  off  his  side,  and 
they  were  nearly  as  big  as  my  hand." 

"  And  he  was  never  captured  ? "  asked  Eckels. 

"  Never." 

"It  involves,  perhaps,  a  slight  change  of  the  sub 
ject,"  said  Eckels,  "  but  an  instance  in  which  a  fish 
was  discomfited  and  made  to  do  a  signal  service  to 
its  ancient  enemy,  the  cat,  may  be  in  order.  Ursula 
Jenks,  of  Paducah — in  your  old  state,  Dr.  Bin- 
ninger — had  a  cat  which  had  either  outlived  or  failed 
to  realize  its  usefulness,  and  which  she  threw  into  a 
pond,  weighted  with  a  six-pound  dumb-bell  lovingly 


THE   BOOK   OF  LIES. 


I29 


attached  by  a  string  to  its  neck.  Then  ensued  a 
strange  sight.  The.  cat,  with  remarkable  presence 
of  mind,  grasped,  as  she  was  going  down,  at  an  enor 
mous  pickerel,  which  had  been  attracted  by  the  pros 
pect  of  a  meal.  Away  went  the  pickerel  at  a  fright 
ful  speed,  the  cat  held  on  with  the  grip  of  death, 
and  the  dumb-bell  came  plunging  after,  until  the 


string,  wherewith  it  had  been  attached  to  her,  being 
worn  by  sharp  stones,  parted.  Then  the  cat  came 
to  the  surface  and  swam  ashore." 

"  By  the  way,  Eckels,  my  boy,"  said  Dr.  Bin- 
ninger,  "  how  is  that  little  affair  of  the  heart  pro 
gressing?" 

"What  affair  of  what  heart?"  said  Eckels,  who 


I3O  THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 

had  sat  rather  gloomily  listening  to  the  conversation, 
but  taking  no  part  in  it. 

"Pshaw,  my  boy  !  Don't  attempt  to  deceive  a 
man  of  my  years  and  experience,  and  above  all,  do 
not  seek  to  repel  the  kindly  assistance  prompted  by 
a  sympathetic  heart.  I  presume  you  have  seen  the 
time,  su-h,  when  a  million  dollars  wouldn't  look  so 
big  to  you  as  a  single  tress  of  hair  of  that  tint  in 
which  the  sun  loves  to  linger.  Strange  thing,  this 
love  !  Nothing  in  the  world  ever  could  be  so  de 
lightful  as  courtship  would  be,  if  it  only  were. 
Courtship  is  the  skirmish  before  the  battle  of  mat 
rimony.  Courtship  is — when  may  we  congratulate 
you,  sir  ?  " 

"  There's  no  use  going  around  prepared  for  emer 
gencies,"  said  Eckels,  shortly,  "  because  emergen 
cies  never  happen  when  you  expect  them  to.  I'm 
not  open  to  congratulations.  Congratulate  Harry, 
there.  He's  big  and  can  stand  it." 

"Harry?"  said  Dr.  Binninger.  "What  non 
sense  !  Harry  is  not  old  enough  to  marry  yet — a 
mere  boy  of  twenty-six  !  It  is  true  that  I  myself 
married  at  twenty-three,  but  if  I  may  say  it,  I  was 
very  mature  and  very  responsible  in  business  ways. 
Yes,  suh,  I—  " 

«  £y  the  way,  Dr.  Binninger,"  said  Harry,  finding 


THE   BOOK   OF  LIES.  131 

his  tongue,  "  as  I  am  going  back  very  early  in  the 
morning  and  am  rather  short,  would  you  mind  giv 
ing  me  that  twenty  now  ?  " 

"Curious,  my  dear  boy,"  said  the  doctor  as 
blandly  as  if  he  were  conferring  an  inestimable  fa 
vor,  "  but  I  find  that  in  the  hurry  of  departure,  I 
came  up  here  with  only  barely  sufficient  funds  my 
self.  But,  my  dear  boy,  perhaps  some  other  gen 
tleman—" 

"  Oh,  no  matter,"  said  Harry,  "  I  shall  manage 
all  right." 

The  subject  of  courtship  was  not  again  mentioned. 


CHAPTER  XL 

THE  EXPECTED  HAPPENS  ;    ALSO   THE  UNEXPECTED. 

BY  one  of  those  quite  accidental  coincidences 
which  have  to  be  carefully  thought  out  beforehand, 
Harry  Porter  was  striding  along  Twenty-third  street 
one  afternoon  at  a  rapid  pace,  regardless  of  the 
throng  of  shoppers,  not  a  few  of  whom  looked  with 
pleasure  on  his  tall,  strong  frame,  handsome  face 
and  shining  eyes.  Ann  Copeland  was  just  ahead 
of  him.  She  was  on  the  same  side  of  the  street,  and 
going  somewhat  slower.  It  is  needless  to  add  that 
she  was  presently  overtaken. 

Apparently  Harry's  strength  was  not  equal  to 
further  maintaining  his  rapid  pace,  for,  greeting  Ann 
with  laborious  coolness,  he  walked  by  her  side  ; 
neither  knew  whither. 

"I  am  afraid/'  she  said  presently,  "  that  I  am 
wasting  your  time.  You  seemed  in  such  a  hurry." 

"Oh,  no,"  Harry  replied.  "I  have  nothing  on 
hand  at  the  moment  except — by  the  way,  did  it 
ever  occur  to  you  that  there  is  no  one  in  this  world 
who  has  such  a  good  time  as  Time  ? " 

"  No — no  ;  I  can't  say  that  it  ever  did." 

"  Well,  it's  true.  While  the  rest  of  us  are  hustling 
132 


THE   BOOK  OF   LIES. 


133 


around  trying  to  make  our  living,  all  Time  has  to 
do  is  just  to  sit  still  and  elapse.  Time  neither  eats, 
nor  drinks,  nor  wears  rubber  overshoes  when  the 


walking  is  damp,  yet  the  careless  creature  will  out 
live  all  of  us." 

"  Yet  time  is  sometimes  weary,"  said  Ann  Cope- 
land,  with  a  sigh. 


134  THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 

"  Has  it  seemed  so  to  you?"  murmured  Harry, 
bending  over  her.  Then  he  hastily  checked  himself 
and  went  on  :  "  Time  never  sleeps,  because  it  never 
has  to.  The  most  it  does  is  to  drouse  on  Sunday 
afternoons.  Time  is  plain  and  matter  of  fact,  while 
Eternity  puts  on  airs  and  gets  its  name  spelled  with 
a  capital  letter,  but  it's  all  the  same  old  Time.  No 
one  knows  when  Time  began  being  Time,  or  when 
it  is  going  to  leave  off.  We  are  dumped  in  the 
middle  of  it  ;  that's  all  we  know." 

"Why,  isn't  that  the  ferry-house  ahead?"  de 
manded  the  girl.  "We've  walked  clear  over  to  the 
North  river.  I — I  didn't  notice.  We  must  go  back 
to  the  square." 

Together  they  turned  to  retrace  their  steps. 

"Nan,"  said  Harry  softly,  plucking  at  an  imagi 
nary  fleck  of  dust  upon  her  sleeve,  and  watching  her 
cheeks'  quick  flush,  "  Nannetta  mia,  I  am  something 
of  a  liar  myself." 

"Very  possible,"  she  responded  with  freezing 
hauteur,  suddenly  assumed  in  that  way  that  women 
have. 

"  I  can  tell  you  more  lies  in  five  minutes  than  Dr. 
Binninger  could  in  a  day,  and  I'm  going  to  begin 
now." 

"  I  do  not  think  they  will  interest  me," 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  135 

"Then  you  are  mistaken.  They  will  interest 
you,  though  you  may  not  like  them.  You  are  an 
extremely  homely  young  woman,  and  I  detest 
you." 

Ann  looked  at  him  in  wide-eyed  amazement,  as 
if  fearing  that  he  had  become  suddenly  insane. 

"  You  squint,"  Harry  went  on  with  judicial  grav 
ity;  "  your  complexion  is  abominable.  While  you 
may  fall  somewhat  short  of  absolute  deformity, 
you  are  as  ungraceful  as  a  woman  can  be.  I  think 
you  dye  your  hair,  and  it's  a  fright  at  that.  I  sup 
pose  you  have  the  worst  taste  in  dress  I  ever  saw 
outside  of  a  dime  museum,  but  it  really  doesn't 
matter,  as  no  kind  of  a  costume  could  redeem  your 
innate  ugliness.  You  have  a  mind  to  match  your 
appearance.  For  downright  folly,  perversity,  and 
all  the  unamiable  attributes  that  can  be  in  one 
woman  compact,  I  have  never  seen  your  equal.  I 
wouldn't  marry  you  under  any  circumstances.  You 
are — " 

The  girl  clapped  both  hands  over  her  face,  fully 
intending  to  burst  into  tears.  Instead,  the  humor 
of  the  avowal  conquered  her  mood,  and  she  laughed 
more  merrily  than  she  had  done  for  days. 

"  Do  you  really  love  me  so  much  ? "  she  whis 
pered,  glancing  up  into  his  eyes,  then  dropping  her 


136  THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 

own.  They  were  walking  very  slowly  now  and 
very  close,  side  by  side. 

"Indeed  I  do— dear,"  he  said,  "  I  told  you  I 
could  lie,  but  I'd  rather  not." 

For  a  little  while  there  was  silence.  A  begrimed 
messenger  boy  walked  backward  just  before  them, 
grinning  up  into  their  faces,  but  they  did  not  see 
him.  This  robbed  the  performance  of  interest,  and 
he  presently  tired  of  it. 

"  Tell  me  some  more  lies,"  she  said  presently. 

"  Well,  you  are—" 

"•No,  no.  Not  that  kind,"  she  said,  with  a  sudden 
tremor  in  her  voice. 

«  Well,  what  kind  ?  "  ' 

"Oh,  I  don't  care.     Fish  lies,  maybe." 

"All  right.  Once  there  was  a  darling  girl — no, 
that  isn't  the  way  they  begin.  Hem  !  It  was  ow 
ing  to  the  fact  that  water  is  an  excellent  conductor 
of  sound  that  Jake  Watlin,  of  Sebogatackoconticook 
Pond,  Maine,  heard,  while  fishing  there,  a  curious 
burring  noise,  which  seemed  to  proceed  from  be 
neath  the  boat.  Presently  he  caught  a  large  pick 
erel  to  which  was  attached  a  fine  open-faced  gold 
watch,  by  a  black  silk  cord,  jauntily  swung  about 
the  fish's  body,  just  back  of  the  gills.  Mystery  of 
mysteries,  the  watch  was  running,  and  within  two 


THE   BOOK  OF  LIES.  137 

minutes  and  thirty-seven  seconds  of  correct  time. 
Anxious  to  solve  the  riddle,  Watlin  put  the  fish, 
just  as  he  was,  into  a  tub  of  water,  transferring  him 
at  the  dock  into  a  large  tank.  Close  watch  was  kept 
on  the  fish  for  several  days,  when  he  was  seen  to 
wind  his  watch  by  laying  it  flat  on  its  back,  and 
turning  the  stem  with  his  mouth.  It  was  the  sound 
of  this  operation  that  Watlin  had  heard.  The  watch 
was  presently  reclaimed  by  its  owner,  who  had 
dropped  it  into  the  lake  seventeen  years  before." 

"No,"  said  the  happy  girl;  "that  isn't  right. 
Tell  me  something  that  happened  to  yourself." 

"Well,  let  me  see.  Hem!  Equal  intelligence 
and  far  greater  fierceness  and  s avoir  fair e  were 
shown  by  a  big  catfish  in  the  Ohio  river,  near 
Wheeling,  whose  acquaintance  I  once  made.  I  was 
fishing  with  a  party  of  friends  in  a  boat,  when  I  was 
suddenly  jerked  overboard  by  a  gigantic  tug  at  my 
line.  Partly,  I  suppose,  from  fright  and  nervous 
ness,  I  clung  to  my  line,  and  was  rapidly  dragged 
down  into  the  cool,  translucent  depths  of  the  water. 
Here  I  was  horrified  at  receiving  a  violent  blow  on 
the  back  of  the  head.  Opening  my  eyes,  I  could 
dimly  see  a  huge  catfish,  its  jaw  torn  and  bleeding, 
from  the  hook,  holding  in  its  mouth  a  jagged  rock 
weighing  several  pounds,  with  which  it  was  viciously 


138  THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 

jabbing  at  my  face  and  head.  I  dropped  the  line 
and  rose  to  the  surface  exhausted,  and  was  rescued 
by  my  friends;  a  moment  after  I  toppled  over  in 
the  boat,  faint  with  loss  of  blood  from  several  fright 
ful  gashes.  The  fish,  which  escaped,  weighed  sev 
enty-nine  pounds." 

"  Oh,  you  poor  boy  !  " 

"  Well,  dear,  you  can  kiss  the  scars  the  naughty 
fish  made,  and  they'll  be  well — when  we  get  oft  this 
confounded  street.  By  the  way,  is  that  the  same 
old  ferry  house  ahead  ? " 

"Why  no,  it's — I  declare,  we've  walked  clear  over 
to  the  East  river  !  " 

They  laughed  a  little,  and  once  more  turned  back. 

"  Now  I'm  going  to  tell  you  one  or  two  short 
lies,  that  will  last  just  to  Fourth  avenue,"  Harry  de 
clared  ;  "  and  then  we'll  cut  across  the  park.  Ev 
erything  is  so  pleasant  to-day." 

"Yes,  isn't  it?" 

"  Hem  !  Once  there  was  a  man.  Let's  see,  I 
guess  he  lived  in  Maine  and  had  the  mumps.  Lots 
of  lies  originate  in  Maine,  but  I  don't  know  that  I 
ever  heard  a  mump  lie.  Anyhow,  there  was  a  terri 
ble  epidemic  of  mumpery,  and  a  man  in  Hancock 
county  put  his  head  out  of  the  window.  The  cold 
air  caused  his  face  to  swell  very  rapidly,  and  when 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  139 

he  tried  to  draw  his  head  back  within  the  house  he 
could  not.  He  was  finally  rescued  from  the  out 
side  by  means  of  a  fire  ladder.  This  incident  seems 
almost  incredible,  but  it  must,  in  fairness,  be  said 
that  the  window  was  a  very  small  one." 

"  Why  do  you  always  say  '  Hem  ! '  when  you 
begin  ?  " 

"I  don't  know.  Custom,  I  suppose.  It's  the 
way  the  professors  do.  Here's  Third  avenue.  Now 
I'll  tell  a  little  lie,  just  one  block  long.  Hem  ! 
Kansas  has  often  been  called  the  Sunflower  State, 
a  title  more  than  ever  appropriate,  since  the  fore 
man  upon  Gov.  Motley's  farm  constructed  his  sun 
flower  clock.  Choosing  an  enormous  sunflower,  he 
attached  to  its  drooping  head  a  tiny  cornstalk,  not 
more  than  ten  feet  long.  About  the  plant  he  drew 
on  the  earth  a  circle,  and  divided  it  into  twenty-four 
parts,  each  of  which  was  subdivided  for  minutes  and 
seconds.  And  now,  as  the  faithful  plant,  from  dawn 
till  dusk,  eyes  its  fierce  lord,  the  cornstalk  pointer 
moves  about  the  dial,  indicating  the  time.  The  sun 
flower  clock  can  also  be  used  as  a  stop-watch,  to 
time  races,  by  holding  over  it  a  big  umbrella,  which 
checks  the  revolution  upon  the  instant,  when  the 
time,  to  a  fraction  of  a  second,  may  be  read  off  upon 
the  dial." 


140  THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 

They  turned  northwest,  across  Madison  Square. 
Once,  by  the  fountain,  where  the  children  played, 
he  squeezed  her  hand. 

Then  her  mood  changed  little  by  little,  and  her 
doubts  began  to  come  back  to  plague  her.  The  ex 
altation  had  been  too  great  to  last,  and  self-ques 
tioning  succeeded  certainty. 

"  Oh,  Harry  !  "  she  breathed  at  last,  after  a  long 
silence,  "  I  am  sure  we  shall  never  be  happy  to 
gether  !  " 

"  Why  not  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  tremble  for  the  future.  There  was  a 
time  when  I  could  have  loved  you,  for  I  thought 
you  were  just  a  nice,  simple,  handsome  clean- 
minded  gentleman,  don't  you  know.  But — but 
somehow  you've  changed,  or  I  have  learned  to 
know  you  better.  I  shrink  from  linking  myself 
with  your  glittering  intellectuality.  I  know  that 
women  who  marry  geniuses  never  are  happy, 
and—" 

"  Well,  did  anyone  ever  see  such  a  goose  ?  "  de 
manded  the  now  thoroughly  exasperated  Harry. 

"  Then  [it  was  true — all  those  horrid  things  you 
told  me  !  "  she  demanded,  turning  upon  him  like  a 
flash,  her  big,  brown  eyes  blazing.  "  A  pretty  opin 
ion  you  must  have  of  me  !  Harry  Porter,  no  man 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  14! 

was  ever  loved  as  I  once  loved  you;  but  I  will  never 
speak  to  you  again  in  my  life — never  ! " 

Then  she  fled  up  the  steps  of  her  own  home,  and 
banged  the  door. 

After  a  minute's  perplexity,  Harry  followed,  rang 
the  bell,  and  asked  for  her. 

The  servant,  with  a  grin  ill-repressed — for  he  had 
witnessed  the  whole  comedy  through  the  sidelight 
of  the  hall  door — said:  "  Miss  Ann  is  not  at  home, 
sir." 

Harry  rushed  away  to  Eckels's  house,  but  that 
worthy  also  was  out. 

"  He  looked  as  if  he  wanted  to  kill  somebody," 
said  the  waitress  and  door-maid  of  the  boarding- 
house,  describing  Harry's  appearance  as  he  asked 
the  whereabouts  of  his  friend  and  adviser. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

BACK    TO    THE    SOIL. 

ECKELS  was  not  at  home. 

He  had  accepted  an  invitation  to  visit  Parker 
Adams's  model  farm  in  Peapack,  New  Jersey,  and 
had  passed  the  night  in  the  attic  of  a  brown,  old 
farm-house,  where  the  rain  of  late  April  pattered  in 
a  sudden  shower  at  4  A.M.,  rousing  him  from  sleep. 

"  I  have  at  last  discovered,"  he  said  to  Adams  at 
the  breakfast  table,  "  the  reason  why  it  is  so  hard  to 
get  up  in  the  morning,  and  it  is  one  that  ought  to 
interest  you  farmers.  It  seems  that  so  much  Ameri 
can  wheat,  corn,  and  gold  have  been  taken  to  the 
old  continent,  that  that  side  of  the  world  has  be 
come  heavier  than  ours.  The  resultant  shifting  of 
the  earth's  centre  of  gravity  further  from  our  side 
causes  an  excess  of  rarefaction  in  the  American 
air,  which,  in  turn,  makes  it  difficult  to  undertake 
severe  exertion.  Every  sailor  knows  that  from 
Liverpool  to  New  York  the  voyage  is  uphill;  but 
the  fact  has  never  before  been  satisfactorily  ex 
plained." 

"  Tell  that  to  the  Doc.  when  he  comes,"  said 
Adams. 

142 


THE   BOOK  OF  LIES.  143 

"Yes,  but,  for  Heaven's  sake,  don't  call  him 
*  Doc  '  !  It's  bad  enough  to  be  waked  at  4,  with 
out  being  killed  at  9." 

Early  in  the  forenoon  Dr.  Binninger,  Tom  Fen- 
ton,  Jim  Hart,  the  returned  miner,  and  Fraser,  the 
Canadian,  came  up  and  began  inspecting  the  crops. 

"  Oh,  this  is  very  well;  very  well,  indeed,  for 
Jersey,"  said  Dr.  Binninger,  at  last/'  as  they  sat  on 
the  fence  by  the  cornfield,  after  their  labors,  smok 
ing;  "  but  nothing  to  what  I  have  seen.  In  Gastley 
County,  Missouri,  I  once  saw  the  corn  growing  to 
such  an  unprecedented  height,  and  the  stalks  so 
exceptionally  vigorous,  that  nearly  every  farmer 
stacked  up,  for  winter  firewood,  great  heaps  of  corn 
stalks,  cut  up  into  cord-wood  length  by  power  saws 
run  by  the  threshing  engines.  One  man,  Barney 
Gregory,  took  advantage  of  the  season  to  win  a  for 
tune  by  preparing  cornstalks  for  use  as  telegraph 
poles.  The  modus  operandi  was  as  follows:  Select 
ing  the  most  promising  stalks,  Barney  removed  the 
ears  while  still  green,  and  gave  each  stalk  a  daily 
injection  of  dilute  potash,  made  from  wood-lye. 
This  tincture  of  tree,  so  to  speak,  absorbed  into  the 
system,  hardened  the  heart,  or  marrow,  of  the  corn 
until  it  was  quite  as  tough  as  cottonwood,  and  con 
siderably  lighter.  The  stalks,  when  well  painted, 


144  THE   BOOK  OF   LIES. 

are  expected  to  last  twenty  years.  Of  course,  they 
would  not  do  for  city  poles,  which  have  to  carry  a 
network  of  wires,  but  they  are  ample  for  trolley- 
posts,  and  for  carrying  three  or  four-wire,  country 
and  suburban  telephone  and  telegraph  lines,  at  a 
height  of  twenty-five  feet." 

11  What  is  one  man's  meat  is  another  man's  poi 
son,"  said  Fenton.  "  Fine  growing  weather,  similar 
to  that  which  made  Gregory's  fortune  in  Missouri, 
has  come  near  ruining  those  of  the  Western  Ne 
braska  farmers  who  raised  pumpkins.  Just  as,  by 
all  ordinary  rules,  the  crop  should  have  been  ready 
to  house,  a  mysterious  rot  began  to  destroy  the 
great  green  globes  glowing  to  yellow  in  the  sun. 
An  examination  by  the  chemists  of  the  State  Agri 
cultural  College,  showed  that  the  trouble  was  due 
to  the  too  rapid  growth  of  the  vines,  which  dragged 
the  pumpkins  about  after  them,  all  over  the  fields, 
until  the  pumpkins'  lower  cuticle,  being  worn  out  by 
the  abrasion,  they  succumbed  easily  to  rot  in  the 
bruised  portion.  Should  another  such  year  come, 
the  farmers  will  avoid  a  like  catastrophe  by  provid 
ing  each  pumpkin  with  a  straw-lined  nest,  or  a  little 
truck  with  casters. 

"  A  good  illustration  of  nature's  bounty  happened 
some  time  ago  in  Doniphan  County,  Kansas,"  contin- 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  145 

ued  Fenton.  "  A  seven-year-old  daughter  of  James 
Steele  was  sent,  in  the  middle  of  the  forenoon,  to 
carry  a  jug  of  switchel  to  the  men,  who  were  at  work 
near  the  middle  of  one  of  those  vast  Kansas  corn 
fields.  The  corn  was  about  up  to  little  Annie's 
shoulders  as  she  started,  but  as  she  went  along  it 
rose  and  rose  before  her  eyes,  shooting  out  of  the 
soil  under  the  magic  influence  of  the  sun  and  the 
abundant  moisture.  Almost  crazed  with  fear,  she 
hastened  on,  but  before  she  could  reach  the  men,  the 
stalks  were  waving  above  her  head.  The  men  were 
threatened  in  a  like  manner,  but  by  mounting  a  lit 
tle  fellow  on  a  big  man's  shoulders,  to  act  as  a  look 
out,  they  managed  to  get  out,  when  they  promptly 
borrowed  a  dog,  to  follow  little  Annie's  trail.  It 
was  not  until  late  in  the  afternoon  that  they  reached 
her,  where  she  lay,  having  cried  herself  to  sleep,  with 
the  tear-stains  streaking  her  plump  cheeks." 

"  The  soil  of  some  of  the  Southern  California 
counties  is  so  rich  as  to  become  an  actual  detriment 
to  the  farmer,"  observed  Eckels.  "  In  San  Ber 
nardino  County,  a  farmer,  named  Jones,  has  been 
forced  entirely  to  abandon  the  culture  of  corn,  be 
cause  the  stalks,  under  the  influence  of  the  genial 
sun,  mild  air,  and  mellow  soil,  shoot  up  into  the  air 
so  fast  that  they  draw  their  roots  after  them ;  when, 


146  THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 

of  course,  the  plant  dies,  as  a  rule.  Cases  have  been 
known,  however,  where  cornstalks  thus  uprooted, 
and  lifted  into  the  air,  have  survived  for  some  time 
upon  the  climate  alone." 

"Why,"  said  Dr.  Binninger,  "we  used  to  have 
the  same  trouble  in  Kentucky,  but  it  was  solved 
long  ago  by  burying  a  heavy  stone  under  each  corn 
stalk,  and  wiring  the  stalk  down  to  it.  I  have  known 
the  price  of  stone  to  treble  in  one  season  in  conse 
quence  of  the  purely  agricultural  demand." 

They  visited  the  pig-pen  and  revived  the  classic 
narrative  of  the  fat  pig  that  was  put  in  the  bucket 
and  didn't  really  fill  it,  though  accustomed  to  eat 
the  bucket  full  of  swill  three  times  daily  ;  and  of 
the  lean  pig,  whose  tail  had  to  be  tied  in  a  knot  to 
prevent  its  crawling  through  the  fence  ;  they  told 
about  the  cow  that  developed  such  an  unnatural  ap 
petite  for  gnawing  wood,  that  she  gave,  instead  of 
milk,  turpentine,  shoe-pegs,  baseball  bats,  and  bun 
dles  of  laths. 

"  And  talking  of  cows,"  said  Fenton,  "there  is  a 
farmer  in  Newcastle,  Pennsylvania,  who  had  a  valu 
able  cow  die  recently  from  mysterious  causes.  A  vet 
erinary  surgeon  made  the  necessary  autopsy  and  dis 
covered  in  the  animal's  stomach,  a  black-snake  over 
four  feet  long,  and  a  number  of  small  ones,  who  ran 


THE   BOOK   OF  LIES. 

away  so  rapidly  that  only  thirty-two  could 

be  killed.     It  is  supposed 

that    the    mother    snake 

made  her  nest  in  the 

animal's  stomach  by 

crawling  therein  while 


the  cow  was  obliged,  by  a  heavy  cold 
in  the  head,  to  sleep  with  her  mouth 
open." 

"  That  a  cow  can  fly  seems  to  be  be 
yond  the  limits  of  probability,"  said 
Adams,  "  yet  the  case  seems  to  be  well 
authenticated  of  one  of  my  Jerseys  of 
light  and  athletic  build,  which  came 
pretty  near  it.  She  jumped  her  fence 
time  and  again.  After  each  offense  I 
built  the  fence  higher,  until  it  had 


148  THE   BOOK   OF  LIES. 

reached  an  altitude  of  twenty-seven  feet.  At  this 
point  I  resolved  to  watch  all  night,  and  was  rewarded 
by  seeing  the  animal  break  off  a  large  number  of 
tree  boughs  and  pile  them  in  a  neat  heap  near  the 
fence.  Then,  running  back  a  little  distance,  she 
came  on,  pellmell,  turning  a  complete  somersault  be 
fore  reaching  the  heap,  and  alighting  on  her  back  on 
top  of  it.  The  next  moment,  she  was  bounced  up 
from  the  elastic  boughs  like  a  jumper  from  a  spring 
board,  and  went  over  the  fence  hands  down.  I 
have  since  thought  that  an  occurrence  like  this 
might  have  suggested  the  story  of  the  cow  that 
jumped  over  the  moon." 

They  watched  the  farm  hands  at  work,  while  Dr. 
Binninger  was  reminded  of  rats. 

"The  Iowa  rats,  suh,"  he  said,  "  are  most  extra 
ordinary.  The  farmers  are  accustomed  to  lock 
their  grain  in  iron  safes,  but  the  rats  circumvent 
even  this  precaution  by  gnawing  in  gangs  of  three, 
gang  number  one  refiling  number  two's  teeth,  while 
number  three  gnaws.  These  rats  sell  readily  at  thir 
ty-seven  cents  each  to  well  drivers,  who  use  the 
teeth  for  pointing  their  diamond  drills.  It  is  calcu 
lated  that  the  rat-teeth  drills  do  16  per  cent,  better 
work  than  the  ordinary  variety." 

One  of  the  hands  at  work  with  his  hoe,  a  light 


THE  BOOK   OF  LIES.  149 

mulatto  of  indescribably  ragged  raiment,  had  hoed 
up  near  enough  to  the  group  to  hear  the  last  words 
of  the  speaker.  All  at  once  dropping  on  his  knees, 
he  raised  his  clasped  hands  toward  Dr.  Binninger 
and  revealed  under  his  broad  hat  the  fear-palsied 
features  of  Henry  the  new  waiter,  of  Henry  the 
runaway  boy  from  the  baiter  shop,  of  Henry  the 
latest  addition  to  the  force  of  the  Peapack  farm. 

"  Oh,  forgive  me,  Massa  ! "  he  moaned,  "  lemme 
go  dis  time  'n'  I'll  go  furder  away  w'ere  yo'll  neber 
see  me  no  mo'.  'Deed  I  will,  boss." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ? "  demanded  Adams,  leaping 
off  the  fence  and  striding  up  to  the  frightened 
youth. 

"  Oh,  don'  let  'im  hit  me,  boss  !  I  dun  g'way. 
I  didn't  know  dishuh  farm  belong  to  a  Trab'ler 
man." 

"  What  is  the  trouble,  Henry  ?  "  asked  Eckels  in 
his  kindliest  tones.  "  Come,  my  boy,  no  one  is  go 
ing  to  touch  you,  so  long  as  you  behave  yourself. 
Now  what  is  it  ?" 

"W'y  suh,  w'en  I  was  in  de  club,  I  arsk  Mist' 
Binninger  wha's  rest  ob  story  'bout  de  ossifer  pig, 
an'  he  tol'  me,  'n'  'en  he  said  any  one  heerd  one  his 
stories  'n'  didn'  belieb'  'em,  he  was  goin'  to  kill  dat 
man,  sho'  nuff,  like  an'  ol'  school  Southern  gemman. 


150  THE   BOOK   OF   LIES. 

'N'  he  come  to  the  barber  shop  'n'  'e  tell  stories 
'bout  wigs  'n'  'possums  ;  ?n'  'e  come  yere  'n'  tell 
stories  'bout  rats.  'Tain't  my  fault,  Mist'  Adams. 
Ise  belieb  'mos'  anyt'in  ;  but  yo'  des  keep  dat 
man  'way  from  me.  Da's  all." 

"  Henry  !  said  Dr.  Binninger — and  his  rich,  full 
voice  was  as  soft  as  a  woman's,  and  all  his  pompous 
manner  gone  ;  "  you  needn't  believe  you  see  day 
light  if  you  don't  want  to.  As  for  me,  I'm  the 
d — dest  old  liar  that  ever  left  Kentucky.  Henry, 
a  true  Southern  gentleman  of  the  old  school  is  the 
best  friend  a  nigger  ever  had.  Gentlemen,"  ad 
dressing  the  rest,  "  leave  me  here  with  Henry,  and  IB 
reckon  we  can  arrange  matters  to  live  on  the  same 
earth  hereafter." 

"  Good-hearted  old  duck,  that  Binninger,"  said 
John  Hart.  "  Say,  won't  any  one  but  the  Doc  get 
anything  to  eat  when  the  boy  is  back  in  the  club." 

While  sitting  on  the  porch,  waiting  for  the  doctor, 
Tom  Fenton  told  about  the  success  of  Mrs.  Eph. 
Dorgan  in  the  poultry  business,  which,  as  the  reader 
will  remember,  was  so  long  the  wonder  of  the  people 
of  Pamphila,  Delaware,  where  she  lives.  Her  supply 
of  tender  poultry  for  the  Wilmington  market  seemed 
to  be  inexhaustible,  yet  she  never  had  any  lack  of 
remaining  hens  to  lay  eggs.  It  won't  be  so  in  fu 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  151 

ture.-  The  neighbors  have  got  on  to  Mrs.  Dorgan's 
trained  hen-hawks.  For  some  time  she  has  had  a 
number  of  these  in  her  service,  ranging  the  country 
round,  and  picking  up  stray  chickens  to  bring  home 
to  her.^.^0f  course  the  losers  never  suspected  hu 
man  agency,  and  could  have  no  knowledge  that  the 
hawks  merely  brought  their  prey  to  the  Dorgan 
coops.  Every  night,  Mrs.  Dorgan  used  to  play 
"Work  While  the  Day  is  Dawning,"  to  the  hawks  on 
the  cottage  melodeon,  and  it  was  this  curious  cus 
tom  which  led  to  the  discovery  of  her  nefarious 
business. 

"  By  the  way,"  said  Adams,  "  see  those  potatoes 
over  there  ?  They're  animal  and  alphabet  potatoes." 

"  Animal  potatoes  ?  " 

"Yes.  A  rare  variety.  The  story  of  their  de 
velopment  is  very  curious,  and  is  known  to  but  few. 
The  '  animal  crackers,'  which  are  sold  in  groceries 
to  the  delight  of  children,  suggested  the  idea  to 
Elmer  Griffin  of  Palaeopolis,  Indiana.  Mr.  Griffin's 
four-year-old  son  was  just  learning  his  letters  at  po 
tato  planting  time  last  spring,  so  Griffin  cut  with 
care  twenty-six  different  forms  of  potato  chips,  each 
resembling  a  letter  of  the  alphabet,  besides  others 
in  the  rude  outlines  of  various  animals  Last  fall 
he  harvested  his  first  crop  of  alphabet  and  animal 


152  THE   BOOK   OF  LIES. 

potatoes  ;  they  delighted  Griffin's  boy  greatly,  and 
he  is  accustomed  before  eating  his  potatoes  to  spell 
with  them  simple  words,  such  as  'a-t — at'<c-a-t — 
cat '  and  the  like,  picking  out,  at  the  same  time,  the 
animal  represented.  Griffin  has  sold  $3,167.15  worth 
of  alphabet  and  animal  potatoes  at  a  fancy  price, 
just  fof  seed,  and  I  have  the  finest  patch  of  them  in 
New  Jersey." 

"  Man  modifies  nature,"  said  Fenton,  "  all  along 
the  line.  There  is  a  spider  in  Brunswick,  Maine, 
which  can  write.  It  is  supposed  to  be  in  love,  and 
has  woven  into  its  web  the  initials  '  W.  K.'  and  '  W. 
H.'  surmounted  by  a  bleeding  heart  transfixed  with 
Cupid's  arrow  and  a  dove.  By  the  way,  speaking  of 
the  tender  passion,  what's  became  of  Harry  Porter  ? 
Why  didn't  he  come  up  to-day  ? " 

"?I  heard  that  he  was  around  last  night  with  blood 
in  his  eye,  looking  for  Eckels.  Speak  up,  Jack; 
what  have  you  been  doing  to  turn  the  path  of  true 
love  into  a  corduroy  road  ?  " 

"Oh,  Lord!"  groaned  Eckels.  "I  don't  feel 
very  well  to-day  !  I — I  have  troubles  of  my  own. 
I  have  a  bad  cough.  I — what  can  be  the  matter 
with  the  young  idiot  now  ?  " 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

NEMESIS   OVERTAKES  JOHN  ECKELS. 

JOHN  ECKELS  was  staring  moodily  into  the  fire  in 
the  big  assembly-room  of  the  Travelers'  Club.  He 
was  already  attired  in  the  festive  garb  of  evening, 
although  it  was  not  yet  6.  It  was  the  date  fixed 
for  the  quarterly  Ladies'  Night  at  the  club,  and 
Eckels  had  not  spirit  enough  to  take  any  unneces 
sary  steps,  between  up  and  down  town. 

The  party  from  Peapack  came  in,  noisy  and  jubi 
lant,  discussing  the  insect  pests  which  make  a  farm 
er's  life  unhappy. 

"  This  is  the  season  when  tales  of  cutworms  and 
other  agricultural  trials  are  in  order,"  said  Tom 
Fenton.  "And  never  before  this  year  have  such 
pests  been  so  numerous  or  so  big.'  A  Kentucky 
farmer,  the  other  day,  dug  up  a  bushel  of  dirt  to 
ascertain  precisely  how  many  cutworms  there  were 
in  it.  Carefully  sifting  the  dirt  and  laying  it  to  one 
side,  while  the  cutworms  were  measured  by  them 
selves,  he  presently  ascertained  that  he  had  just 
half  a  bushel  of  clear  dirt  left,  and  rather  over  a 
bushel  and  a  quarter  of  cutworms.  This  seems  a 
surprising  result  considering  that  he  had  only  a 


154  THE   BOOK   OF   LIES. 

bushel  of  both  to  start  with  ;  but  the  sifting  opera 
tion  took  time  enough  to  permit  the  worms  to  grow 
from  a  half  bushel  to  one  bushel  and  a  half. 

"Among  worms,"  Fenton  went  on,  "  which  have 
no  conscience,  there  is  no  law  but  the  survival  of 
the  fittest.  Nevertheless,  there  is  a  rude  sort  of  honor 
even  among  grasshoppers,  as  any  one  would  agree 
who  had  witnessed  the  extraordinary  grass-hopper 
tournament  at  Napa,  California,  recently.  Upon 
a  bare  strip  of  ground,  from  which  everything  green 
had  been  eaten,  a  hundred  grasshoppers  tugged 
along  a  single  luscious  cabbage  leaf.  Presently  one 
of  them  drew  a  long  mark  in  the  dirt,  and  from  this, 
in  succession,  the  grasshoppers  jumped,  the  mark 
where  each  landed  being  kept  with  scrupulous  care. 
Three  trials  were  allowed  to  each  contestant,  after 
which  the  victor  began  munching  the  cabbage  leaf, 
while  the  others  retired  with  derisive  '  oh's '  and 
'ah's  ! '  The  naturalist  who  observed  this  curious 
scene  measured  the  winning  jump,  which  was  7  feet 
11%  inches.  California  grasshoppers  are  very  ath 
letic." 

"  Hem  !  "  broke  in  Dr.  Binninger  :  "the  shrewd 
and  thrifty  air  of  Connecticut  naturally  encourages 
intellect,  even  in  the  animal  kingdom.  In  other 
states  the  potato-bugs  sit  around  on  the  hills,  wait- 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  155 

ing  for  the  plants  to  come  up.  In  Connecticut  they 
evade  the  farmer  and  his  paris-green  in  a  very  clever 
way.  Near  Moosup,  a  colony  of  potato-bugs  this 
year  took  possession  of  a  waste  bit  of  land  and 
planted  their  own  potatoes.  The  seed  they  stole 
from  a  farmer  who  left  a  bag  of  seed  potatoes  in 
his  field  over  night,  gnawing  each  potato  into  sev 
eral  pieces,  so  that  a  gang  of  eight  bugs  and  a  fore 
man  could  roll  it  away.  The  patch  they  planted  was 
about  half  an  acre  in  extent,  and  the  bugs  kept  it 
nicely  weeded,  until  the  plants  began  to  appear  above 
the  ground,  and  then  they  were  in  high  feather,  un 
til  their  fat  pickings  were  accidentally  discovered  by 
a  wandering  mill  hand.  Then  the  owner  of  the  land, 
unfeelingly,  appropriated  the  potatoes,  which  are  es 
timated  to  yield  500  bushels  to  the  acre,  and  poi 
soned  off  the  industrious  bugs." 

'<  There  are  many  wonderful  things  to  be  seen  in 
the  far  West,"  said  Donald  Fraser,  who  had  just 
been  elected  a  member  of  the  Travelers'.  "In  the 
wonderful  climate  of  California  not  only  plants,  but 
animals,  attain  a  size  and  vigor  elsewhere  un- 
equaled.  A  peculiar  instance  of  this  Brobdingna- 
gian  tendency  is  found  in  the  giant  jack-rabbits  of 
San  Mateo.  These  rabbits  have,  even  within  the 
memory  of  white  men,  increased  immensely  in  size 


THE   BOOK   OF  LIES. 


until  they  now  average  the  dimensions  of  a  New 
foundland  dog.  With  their  greater  size  they  de 
velop  considerable  fierceness,  and  often  attack,  in 
the  open  field,  men  who  are  seeking  to  deprive  them 
of  food,  by  harvesting  the  cabbages.  Comminuted 
fractures  of  the  tibia,  fibula  and  femur  are  common 
results  of  a  farm-hand's  encounter  with  a  jack-rab 
bit.  The  rabbit's  only  means  of  defense  is  to  kick 
with  his  great  hind  feet,  but  this  is  by  no  means  to 
be  despised." 

"  I  like  always  to  consider  insect  life  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  scientist,"  said  Dr.  Binninger. 
"  Bees  and  ants  are  especially  interesting  subjects 
of  entomological  study.  At  the  best,  bees  have 
never  been  noted  for  chronological  accuracy,  though 
very  industrious  and  masters  of  isometry,  equian- 
gulation  and  architectonics.  It  was  to  the  ant  that 
the  sluggard  was  advised  to  go  for  an  object  lesson 
in  wisdom.  Particularly,  no  doubt,  to  the  so-called 
'  farmer  ants  '  of  northern  Mexico,  who  are  distin 
guished  among  all  their  tribe  by  their  passionate 
devotion  to  tilling  the  soil.  These  ants  have  de 
veloped  tiny  cereals  growing  on  stalks  a  hundredth 
part  of  an  inch  tall.  They  dig  and  level  patches  of 
ground,  they  sow  the  grain  carefully,  saved  from 
last  year's  seed,  they  watch,  water  and  tend  it. 


158  THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 

When  the  fields  are  white  with  harvest,  they  nibble 
down  the  stalks,  place  the  grain  heads  in  broad 
leaves,  and  thresh  out  the  kernels  by  pounding  them 
with  grains  of  sand.  The  grain  is  then  stored  away 
in  underground  granaries  for  the  winter.  By  thus 
providing  a  variety  in  their  diet  from  the  monoto 
nous  mule,  mining  inspector  and  jack-rabbit  in  a 
state  of  decomposition,  these  ants  have  become 
much  larger  and  stronger,  as  well  as  wiser,  than 
those  of  more  northern  climes." 

"  The  wholeJWest  is  full  of  marvels,"  said  Fraser, 
"  which  are  unsuspected  by  the  staid  dwellers  in  the 
prosy  East.  There  is,  for  instance,  a  peculiar  variety 
of  snake,  living  near  Las  Vegas,  New  Mexico,  known 
by  the  Spanish-American  residents  of  the  territory, 
as  the  flagellantes,  from  a  strange  custom  it  has  of 
doing  penance  for  misdeeds.  When  one  of  these 
snakes  has,  in  unrighteous  anger,  bitten  another,  he 
is  called  into  the  presence  of  a  solemn  jury  of  his 
peers,  and,  so  far  as  naturalists  can  see,  receives  a 
fair  trial.  If  no  justification  appears,  the  leading 
snake — comparable  either  to  the  judge  or  foreman 
of  the  jury,  or  sheriff — hands  the  culprit  a  branch 
of  the  green  mesquit,  'horrid  with  thorns,'  as  old 
Virgil  would  say.  Grasping  this  frightful  weapon 
in  its  mouth,  the  guilty  snake  flogs  its  own  bleeding 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  159 

sides  until  the  whip  falls  from  its  nerveless  jaws. 
Then  the  surgeon  snakes  roll  the  expiating  sufferer 
up  in  green  leaves  moistened  with  spittle,  which 
soon  heals  the  wounds  by  excluding  the  air.  This 
ceremony  has  been  witnessed  by  more  than  one  old 
hunter,  and  has  caused  this  variety  of  snake  to  be 
held  in  superstitious  regard." 

"  The  East  has  wonders  quite  as  great,"  said  Par 
ker  Adams.  "  Fond  mothers  of  Wallingford,  Con 
necticut,  desiring  to  impress  upon  their  male  offspring 
the  lesson  that  one  should  not  bolt  his  food,  are  now 
enforcing  it  by  the  sad  case  of  a  black-snake,  in  the 
Stony  Hill  region,  which  recently  ran  upon  a  nest 
of  hen's  eggs,  while  in  a  terribly  hungry  condition. 
The  famished  snake  bolted  the  eggs  whole,  not 
knowing  that  they  had  been  brooded  upon  by  their 
fond  mother  until  they  were  near  the  hatching  point. 
The  owner  of  the  hen,  attracted  by  the  fowl's  angry 
screaming,  came  up  presently,  and  found  the  snake 
writhing  in  convulsions,  with  an  expression  upon  its 
face,  however,  that  was  rather  of  laughter  than  of 
pain.  As  the  man  came  up,  the  snake,  with  a  last 
convulsive  wriggle,  gave  up  the  ghost.  An  imme 
diate  autopsy  was  held,  by  the  aid  of  an  ax,  and 
eleven  downy  little  chicks  rolled,  peeping,  out  of 
the  snake's  interior.  They  had  hatched  out  in  that 


l6o  THE   BOOK   OF   LIES. 

warm  retreat,  and  by  scratching  the  snake's  stom 
ach,  had  tickled  it  so  that  it  expired  in  a  fit  of  Ho 
meric  laughter." 

"  There  are  escapes  as  wonderful  as  that  snake's 
demise,"  said  Fraser.  "  If  you  '11  pardon  another 
reference  to  the  West,  I  should  like  to  relate  a  little 
incident  in  the  life  of  a  western  dog.  Bob  Jones  of 
Colcannon,  Colorado,  has  a  climbing  dog,  which  is, 
probably,  the  only  living  creature  that  has  ever  fallen 
a  thousand  feet  and  emerged  alive.  Scamp — that's 
the  dog — was  gamboling  about  on  the  edge  of  the 
Grand  Canyon,  when  it  saw  a  butterfly,  and,  in 
snapping  at  the  airy,  flitting  creature,  lost  its  foot 
ing,  and  went  down  kerplulp.  By  devious  ways, 
and  with  the  expenditure  of  several  hours'  time, 
Jones  reached  the  bottom  of  the  canyon,  when, 
after  a  long  search,  he  was  rewarded  by  hearing  a 
plaintive  whine  from  the  bottom  of  a  deep  '  well- 
hole,'  drilled  in  ages  past  by  whirling  and  swirling 
water.  Here  was  Master  Scamp,  alive,  but  subdued 
in  spirit.  He  owed  his  escape  to  the  sudden  descent 
into  the  hole,  which  he  exactly  fitted,  thus  forming 
underneath  him  a  cushion  of  compressed  air.  This 
principle,  it  is  well  known,  is  used  in  the  mechanism, 
which  catches  the  recoil  of  cannon,  and  in  the  cup 
at  the  bottom  of  the  elevator  shaft. 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  l6l 

"  Another  Western  wonder,  I  might  add.  Miik 
farmers  are  often  accused  of  milking  the  pump- 
handle,  but  Milt  Wiltshire  of  Gadena,  Nebraska, 
openly  avows  that  he  does  so,  and  is  blamed  by  none. 
Upon  Wiltshire's  farm  there  has  been  discovered  a 
subterranean  vein  of  perfect  mineral  milk,  responding 
thoroughly  to  every  chemical  and  gustatorial  test. 
Babies  thrive  so  upon  the  milk  that  he  is  able  to 
charge  an  extra  price  per  quart,  and  as  the  supply 
is  large,  Wiltshire  has  in  his  well  *  the  potentiality 
of  wealth  beyond  the  dreams  of  avarice,'  as  Dr. 
Johnson  said  of  Mrs.  Thrale's  beer  vats." 

"  It  has  often  puzzled  me  to  think  what  a  plain 
farmer,  suddenly  enriched,  could  find  to  do  -with  so 
much  money,"  said  Adams. 

"  I  understand,"  said  Fraser,  "that  Wiltshire  in 
tends  to  start  a  new  monthly  magazine. v 

"  Oh,  in  that  case — " 

"  The  relation  of  the  wonders  of  the  West  could 
never  be  exhausted,"  said  Fraser;  «but  if  you'll 
pardon  me  the  addition  of  a  single  instance,  I  will 
tell  you  of  the  new  stand  bought  by  Mrs.  Brown  of 
Defiance,  Ohio.  It  came  from  Grand  Rapids,  where 
they  make  furniture  pretty  quickly,  out  of  green 
wood.  She  set  the  stand  in  a  big  window,  where  it 
was  exposed  to  the  direct  rays  of  the  sun,  and  pres- 


l62  THE   BOOK   OF   LIES. 

ently  it  sprouted  and  began  to  grow.  Noticing  this, 
Mrs.  Brown  placed  each  leg  of  the  stand  in  a  pot  of 
water,  and  watered  it  assiduously  every  day;  and 
she  has  now  a  fine  dining-table,  with  extra  leaves  to 
insert  when  she  has  company." 

"  Eckels  !  oh,  Eckels  !  "  shouted  Adams  ;  "  wake 
up  and  contribute  something  to  the  general  fund 
of  information.  Rise,  and  give  your  experience, 
brother  !  " 

A  wan  and  dejected  countenance  looked  up  from 
the  corner  by  the  big  fire,  and  fell  again;  the  chin 
upon  the  broad  expanse  of  shirt-bosom,  its  only 
support.  He  looked  up  again,  when  Harry  Porter 
came  banging  into  the  room. 

"I  want  to  see  you,  Eckels,"  he  said;  and  there 
was  a  lurking  devil  in  his  sneer. 

"  Now  little  Jacky's  going  to  catch  it,"  said  Ad 
ams,  comfortably  nestling  into  the  big  chair  Eckels 
left  with  a  sigh. 

And  he  did. 

''You're  a  pretty  adviser  !  "  Harry  began,  when 
the  two  had  vanished  from  the  busier  scene. 

"Yes,"  said  Eckels,  "  I  am." 

"  I  tried  your  scheme  faithfully,  didn't  I  ? " 

"Yes,  you  did." 

"  Well,  I  look  as  if  it  had  succeeded,  don't  I  ? " 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  163 

"  No,  I  can't  say  that  you  do." 

"That's  strange  !  Yes,  it  succeeded  !  Oh,  yes  ! 
She  said  I  was  too  beastly  intellectual  to  tie  to. 
That's  what  a  fellow  gets  by  straining  his^intellect  to 
tell  lies  and  extemporize  painfully  learned  epigrams." 

"  Strange,  how  a  woman  can  misjudge  a  man  !  " 

"  Yes,  isn't  it  ?  By  the  way,  how  is  your  own 
business  coming  on  ?  Not  that  I  care  a  d ." 

"  Oh,  about  like  yours." 

"  Singular  !  This  wise  man  that  knows  all  about 
the  female  sex  can't  run  a  courtship  on  his  own 
plans  and  specifications.  I  think  I  was  a  blamed 
idiot  to  listen  to  you." 

"  You  were,  my  boy.  See  here,  Harry,  you  feel 
sore,  don't  you  ?  Well,  go  ahead  !  Keep  on  kick 
ing  !  It  relieves  your  feelings,  and  doesn't  hurt 
mine  a  bit.  I'm  in  the  dumps  so  far  that  you  can't 
drive  me  any  deeper  by  jumping  on  me.  In  fact, 
it  relieves  my  misery  by  imparting  to  my  misspent 
life  a  taste  of  variety.  Go  ahead.  You  help  make 
things  a  little  more  endurable/' 

"  Why,  Jack,"  said  Harry,  "  what's  the  matter  ? 
Tell  me  all  about  it !  I  don't  blame  you  for  what 
has  happened.  I  presume  your  plan  was  better  than 
my  execution  'of  it.  Anyhow,  that's  past.  What 
went  wrong  in  your  case  ?  " 


164          .  THE   BOOK   OF  LIES. 

"  Oh,  not  much.  She  simply  opened  her  eyes 
very  wide,  and  said,  she'd  never  considered  me  in 
the  light  of  a  suitor.  I  overdid  the  studied  neglect 
act,  just  as  you  overdid  the  intellectual  lay.  The 
trouble  with  me  is,  I'm  too  confounded  smart. 
And  now  I  get  it  in  the  neck.  Serves  me  right." 

"  True,  oh,  philosoph.  Are  the  sisters  going  to 
be  here  to-night  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know.     Go  ask  Langdon." 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

LA  BELLE  DAME  JAMAIS  SANS  MERCI. 

THE  Ladies'  Nights  of  the  Travelers'  Club  were 
such  enjoyable  occasions  that  no  one  need  suppose 
that  Miss  Copeland  and  Miss  Ann  Copeland  at 
tended,  on  the  night  in  question,  in  the  hope  of  see 
ing  Eckels  and  Harry  Porter.  Indeed  they  had  no 
particular  reason  to  expect  either  gentleman  to  be 
present.  Probably  they  assured  themselves  that 
they  hoped  Eckels  and  Harry  would  have  the  good 
taste  to  keep  away.  In  their  hearts — but  who  knows 
the  heart  of  woman  ?  Certainly  not  women. 

Mrs.  Langdon  had  not  seen  Dr.  Binninger  since 
he  dined  at  her  house,  and  the  sight  of  his  expansive 
form,  swelling  with  pride  as  he  officiated  as  chairman 
of  the  reception  committee,  reminded  her  of  a  remark 
he  had  made  on  the  former  occasion.  So  when  the 
enlarged  party  was  gathered  in  the  big  assembly- 
room  for  the  story  telling,  with  which  Ladies'  Night 
at  the  Travelers'  always  closed,  after  the  early  birds 
had  flown,  and  the  chairs  were  drawn  about  the  fire, 
she  said:  "  Dr.  Binninger,  what  is  a  *  sidewinder  '  ?" 

"  Bless  me,  I  don't  know." 

"Why,  you  must.  It  was  you,  who  said  they 
165 


l66  THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 

were  among  the  most  interesting  of  American  snakes, 
and  then  you  forgot  to  tell  about  them." 

"  Oh,  yes;  the  sidewinders.  Why,  of  course! 
Bless  me,  my  dear  Madame!  I'd  forgotten  all 
about  them.  I  must  be  getting  old  and  forgetful. 
Sidewinders?  Why,  naturally!  Hem!  The  horned 
rattlesnake,  or  '  sidewinder  '  of  California,"  he  went 
on  after  sparring  for  a  time  until  he  collected  his 
thoughts,  "  is  a  strange  creature,  named  for  its  pe 
culiar  gait.  Its  peculiarity  of  locomotion  came  to 
my  notice  in  this  manner:  Gid  Marsh  has  a  bonan 
za  farm  in  Tuolomne  county,  and  during  the  season 
of  1879,  some  of  his  men  killed  some  of  these  side 
winders.  The  relatives  of  the  dead  snakes,  after 
attending  to  the  obsequies,  ranged  themselves  in  a 
line  atone  side  of  Marsh's  immense  wheat-field,  and, 
at  the  signal  of  command  from  the  oldest  and  larg 
est  sidewinder,  they  swept  like  a  vast  scythe  across 
the  field,  leveling  every  blade  as  if  a  storm  had 
swept  them.  The  damage  was  estimated  at  $579, - 
813.71.  Since  then  I  have  noticed  that  the  side 
winder  invariably  travels  laterally,  not  longitudinally. 

"  In  the  face  of  such  singular  instances  of  con 
certed  action,"  Dr.  Binninger  went  on,  "  who  can 
deny  the  essential  identity  between  what  we  call  in 
animals,  instinct  and  in  ourselves,  reason  ?  So  many 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  167 

instances  are  known  of  the  imitative  tendencies  of 
animals  that  one  sometimes  wonders  why  they  have 
chosen  examples  so  vile.  Bob  Jones,  a  prominent 
saloon-keeper  whom  I  used  to  know  in  Louisville, 
has  a  dog,  for  instance,  which  is  not  only  fond  of 
beer,  but  has  taught  his  chums  the  same  taste,  for  a 
purpose  which  now  appears.  One  day  a  tin  pail  full 
of  beer  was  given  to  Spot,  who  carefully  lugged  it 
away  to  the  woodshed,  instead  of  lapping  it  up  at 
once.  Investigation  revealed  the  fact  that  he  had 
placed  the  tin  on  a  board  raised  upon  two  blocks  to 
form  a  bar.  Ranged  on  the  other  side  were  half  a 
dozen  dogs,  who  had  come  with  bones,  rags  and  bits 
of  biscuit  to  buy  a  drink.  So  many  laps  were  allowed 
in  return  for  each  article,  and  the  other  dogs  kept 
coming.  By  and  by  Spot,  seeing  his  tin  nearly 
empty,  dashed  back  into  the  saloon  with  it,  dipped 
it  full  of  water  from  a  pail  on  the  floor  and  returned. 
But  the  first  dog  that  tasted  of  the  diluted  beverage, 
raised  a  howl  of  protest,  whereupon  the  customers 
attacked  Spot  in  a  body,  and  not  only  thrashed  him 
roundly,  but  took  away  all  his  riches." 

A  dusky  form  glided  in  front  of  the  circle  to  cast 
fresh  logs  upon  the  waning  coals,  and  the  gleam  of 
the  white  teeth  in  Henry's  smile  as  he  looked  upon 
the  doctor,  showed  that  he  had  no  more  fears  of  the 


l68  THE   BOOK   OF  LIES. 

consequences  of  disbelief.  As  Dr.  Binninger  laid  a 
caressing  hand  upon  the  boy's  shoulder,  he  fairly 
beamed  with  happiness. 

"  That's  a  good  boy,  Henry,"  said  the  burly  nar 
rator;  "keep  a  good  fire.  We're  not  ready  to  go 
yet.  This  reminds  me  of  the  great  fires  we  had  over 
in  the  Swiss  mountains  last  winter.  Some  of  you 
may  not  have  noticed  that  the  good  old  American 
sport  of  sliding  down  hill  in  the  *  belly-buster '  style, 
beloved  of  the  small  boy,  has  been  introduced  into 
that  country.  I  am,  myself,  an  honorary  member  of 
a  daring  club  of  Italian  mountaineers,  who  have  es 
tablished  a  toboggan  course  from  the  Matterhorn 
peak  southeastward.  It  was  from  the  Matterhorn  that 
Hadow  and  Croz  lost  their  lives  in  a  straightaway 
fall  of  4,000  feet  when  the  mountain  was  first  scaled 
by  Whymper.  On  the  Italian  side  the  jump  is  only 
about  2,700  feet,  which  is  taken  flying;  the  tobog 
gans  are  provided  with  a  complicated  arrangement  of 
springs  to  break  the  fall,  and  life  is  sustained  during 
the  flight,  through  space,  by  sucking  pure  oxygen 
through  a  tube  from  a  magazine  under  the  seat. 
The  tremendous  speed  gained  by  the  toboggan  dur 
ing  the  descent  and  on  the  slope  below,  carries  the 
sportsman  right  on  and  over  the  gently  rounded 
summit  of  Monte  Rosa.  When  ladies  take  the  slide 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  169 

they  generally  use  sleds  provided  with  parachutes, 
which  make  the  precipitous  part  of  the  descent  safe 
and  pleasant.  To  get  back  to  the  starting  point  in 
volves  a  railroad  detour  of  117  miles  and  two  days' 
climbing  from  Zermatt,  so  that  one  can't  easily  en 
joy  the  experience  oftener  than  once  a  week." 

"  Can't  you  tell  some  stories  to  match  that,  Mr. 
Porter  ?  "  said  Miss  Curtis,  the  pale  girl  in  blue,  who 
had  come  with  the  wife  of  an  elderly  member. 

She  smiled  her  sweetest  smile  as  she  said  it,  but 
Harry  groaned  inwardly,  and  Ann  Copeland  ground 
her  teeth  in  ineffectual  rage,  not  so  much  at  the  re 
quest  as  at  the  smile. 

"  I  can,"  said  Harry,  manfully,  resisting  an  in 
stant's  inclination  to  run  away,  "  but  not  even  to 
oblige  you  will  I.  I  must  beg  to  be  excused.  With 
me  such  a  story  as  you've  just  heard  means  a  half 
day's  struggle  with  a  pen,  a  painful  effort  to  commit 
the  thing  to  memory  and  all  that.  So  you  see  I 
can't  do  anything  extempore  like  this;  but  I'm  a  fine 
listener.  So  I'll  beg  to  remain  in  the  background." 

In  retiring  to  the  background,  Harry  by  the  merest 
accident  had  taken  a  chair,  which  stood  next  to  that 
occupied  by  Ann  Copeland. 

"  Yes,  it's  all  true,  Nannette,"  he  soon  found  oc 
casion  to  say  to  her  under  cover  of  the  laughter 


I/O  THE   BOOK   OF   LIES. 

evoked  by  one  of  Adams's  best  tales.  "I'm  just 
such  a  fool,  Lord  help  me!  Can't  we — can't  we 
patch  up  things  between  us  somehow?" 

"  And  you  took  all  that  trouble  to  please  me  ?  " 
she  murmured.  "  I — I've  completely  forgotten 
what  I  said  to  you  the  other  night." 

"  So  have  I,  dear  ;  I  fancy  you  never  said  it  at 
all." 

"  I  know  I  didn't." 

Fraser  was  relating  the  wonderful  escape  of  a 
bicycle  policeman,  and  had  reached  that  point  in 
the  narrative  where  the  pursued  scorcher  dropped 
his  wheel,  and  ran  up  the  stairway  of  a  tenement. 

"  The  policeman  followed  right  upstairs,  without 
dismounting,  until  he  came  to  the  stairs  leading  to 
the  roof  scuttle,"  he  went  on.  "  While  he  was 
climbing  these,  and  dragging  the  bicycle  after  him, 
the  thief  got  a  good  start.  On  the  flat  roof  the 
policeman  mounted  again,  and  overhauled  his  man 
just  at  the  end  of  the  block.  Such  was  their  im 
petus,  however,  that  both  went  over  the  parapet  to 
the  street,  a  distance  of  fifty  feet,  but  as  they  fell 
on  top  of  the  bicycle,  the  pneumatic  tires  saved 
them  both  from  injury." 

"But,  after  all,"  said  Dr.  Binninger,  " that  was 
nothing  to  a  narrow  escape  I  once  witnessed  down 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 


I/I 


in  the  Indian  Territory.  An  Indian  woman,  while 
at  work,  had  left  her  baby  lying  on  a  blanket  As 
I  was  riding  by,  an  eagle  swooped  down  out  of  the 
sky,  and,  grasping  the  pappoose  in  his  iron  talons, 
rapidly  flew  away.  I  stood  aghast.  I  had  no 


weapon  save  a  revolver,  whose  range  was  too  short 
for  the  work.  Besides,  I  was  afraid  of  hitting  the 
child.  However,  up  dashed  an  Indian  brave  on  the 
run,  and  hastily  aiming  his  rifle  at  the  flying  bird, 
fired  twice,  and  down  it  came  with  a — " 


1/2  jTHE   BOOK  OF  LIES, 

"  But  wasn't  the  child  smashed  in  falling  ? "  asked 
Nina  Markham,  wide-eyed. 

"  Down  came  the  eagle  slowly,  flapping  desper 
ately  with  his  crippled  wings.  The  Indian  had 
broken  each  with  a  shot,  so  that  the  eagle  fell,  in 
deed,  but  very  slowly,  struggling  to  the  earth.  The 
child  was  only  slightly  shaken  up." 

"  And  yet  Cooper  says  that  Indians  are  not  as 
good  shots  as  white  men,"  said  Mrs.  Langdon. 

"  And  they  are  not.  I  neglected  to  say  that  the 
marksman  was  a  half-breed.  His  eyes,  arms,  and 
judgment  were  all  white.  His  legs  were  the  Indian 
half  of  him." 

"  I  like  the  clear  glow  of  this  fire,"  said  Langdon, 
after  a  pause,  during  which  every  one  sat  seeing 
castles  in  the  flickering  light.  "  Fire  is  swift  decay. 
I  once  knew  a  peculiar  case,  which  really  seemed  to 
be  a  cross  between  phosphorescence  and  combus 
tion,  having  all  the  quality  of  the  former  and  the 
brilliance  of  the  latter.  The  phosphorescent  effect 
of  fungi  upon  the  old  bark  of  decaying  trees  is  well 
known  ;  but  it  is  not  so  thoroughly  understood  that 
there  is  in  California  and  Nevada  a  rare  tree,  known 
as  the  'witch  tree,'  from  the  way  in  which  every 
limb,  twig  and  leaf  stands  outlined  in  the  darkest 
night  by  some  peculiar  quality  of  the  bark.  A  large 


THE   BOOK   OF   LIES.  173 

tree  of  this  species  is  estimated  to  furnish  illumina 
tion  equivalent  to  100  electric  lights  of  standard 
sixteen-candle  power  variety,  and  a  few  small  towns 
in  the  foothills  have  planted  witch  trees  on  street 
corners,  as  an  economical  means  of  municipal  illu 
mination." 

"Do  you  believe  in  luck?"  asked  Adams  of  no 
one  in  particular. 

"I  do,"  said  Harry  Porter,  promptly,  and  then  he 
blushed  and  wished  he  had  not  spoken. 

"  I  am  myself,"  said  Adams,  hastily,  to  cover  the 
young  man's  confusion,  "  a  thorough  believer  in 
signs,  omens,  and  hoodoos.  I  have  seen  too  many  in 
stances  to  doubt.  Many  railroad  men  have  such  a 
prejudice  against  the  number  thirteen  that  most 
roads  skip  that  numeral  in  numbering  cars  or  en 
gines.  There  was  a  No.  13  freight  car  on  the 
M.  K.  and  Q.,  however,  until  the  cyclone  came  which 
terminated  its  career.  The  path  of  the  storm  was 
very  narrow,  which,  of  course,  only  made  its 
violence  so  much  the  greater.  It  came  across  the 
track  where  a  long  freight  train  was  running,  and 
ripped  No.  13  out  of  the  line  like  a  feather.  None 
of  the  other  cars  felt  more  than  an  ordinarily  high 
wind.  Indeed,  the  absence  of  No.  13  was  not  at 
once  noted.  In  sailing  away,  it  jerked  together  the 


174  THE  BOOK  OF  LIES. 

cars  before  and  behind  it,  when  the  coupling  links, 
which  had  been  melted  by  the  rapidity  with  which 
they  had  been  broken,  were  welded  together  again 
as  they  cooled,  leaving  the  train  as  safe  as  ever, 
but  one  car  short.  Some  farmers'  boys  saw  the  car  as 
it  went  off  to  leeward,  but  its  irons  and  timbers  were 
probably  fused  to  ashes,  by  impact  with  the  at 
mosphere  ;  as  no  trace  of  it  was  ever  seen. 

"  There  is  good  luck  as  well  as  bad,"  he  went  on. 
"  I  suppose  you  all  know  that  the  good  old  days  in 
South  Africa,  when  a  man  could  make  a  fortune  easily, 
are  gone,  never  to  return.  Nowadays  the  money  is 
made  in  London  by  speculators,  and  there  is  no  op 
portunity  for  such  coups  and  coops  as  laid  the 
foundations  of  Carney  Carnatto's  fortune  of  $1,500,- 
000,000.  Carnatto  went  into  the  Witwatersrand  re 
gion  in  1877  with  no  capital  save  a  dozen  hens,  a 
skillet,  and  a  little  pepper  and  salt.  With  these  and 
other  stuff,  purchased  from  time  to  time  as  money 
came  in,  Carnatto  opened  the  Digger's  Delight  res 
taurant.  Whenever  he  killed  a  tender  broiler,  of  thir 
teen  years  or  so,  Carnatto  would  deftly  remove  from 
its  crop  the  rough  diamonds  it  had  swallowed,  as  an 
adjuvant  to  digestion.  By  the  time  the  twelve  hens 
were  all  eaten,  Carney  had  cleared  up  stones  valued 
at  about  ,£7,390,  los.  6d.  With  this  capital  he  went 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIES.  175 

into  the  brokerage  business,  with  the  result  which 
all  the  world  now  knows." 

"  By  the  way,"  said  Eckels,  "  the  mention  of 
South  Africa  reminds  me  that  we  really  must  have 
the  rest  of  that  story  about  Jameson  at  Krugers- 
dorp." 

There  was  a  vibrant  ring  in  Eckels'  voice,  and  a 
new  elasticity  in  his  manner.  His  eyes  shone  as 
brightly  as — well,  no  one  could  see  Miss  Copeland's 
for  comparison,  for  she  kept  them  modestly  lowered. 
They  were  sitting  close  together,  a  little  withdrawn 
from  the  light  of  the  blazing  fire. 

"  Yes,  yes  ;  the  Krugersdorp  story,"  said  half  a 
dozen  voices,  and  all  eyes  were  turned  upon  a  quiet 
man  away  at  the  end  of  the  semi-circle.  But  there 
was  no  reponse. 

"  Punch  him  somebody,"  said  Eckels;  "he's 
dreaming  over  his  thrilling  experiences." 

"Me?"  said  the  returned  miner,  looking  up  ;  "I 
wasn't  with  Jameson  at  Krugersdorp." 

THE  END. 


BUSHY 


A  Thrilling  Romance  Founded  on  Fact.  By  CYNTHIA 
M.  WEST  OVER.  With  32  Full-page  Illustrations  by 
J.  A.  WALKER.  i2mo,  Buckram,  $1.25.  A  fine 
character  study.  Pure  in  sentiment.  Not  a  dull 
chapter. 

"  The  story  is  told  with  a  rush  and  whirl  that  takes  the  reader  off  his  feet: 
Bushy  is  a  fine  character." — Detroit  Free  Press. 

"  Bushy  is  the  sturdiest  little  woman  who  ever  brought  sunshine  to  a  min-s 
er's  camp.  The  book  is  intensely  exciting  from  start  to  finish." — Boston 
Herald. 

"With  all  her  reality,  Bushy's  cleverness  is  phenomenal." — Providence 
Journal. 

"  Bushy  has  met  with  a  most  cordial  reception  in  every  section.  Every 
one  who  reads  it  recommends  it  with  enthusiasm.  The  book  is,  indeed,  fas 
cinating." — New  York  Commercial  Advertiser. 

"The  story  is  full  of  life,  vigor,  movement,  and  there  is  no  girl  or  boy — no 
parent,  either,  we  hope— who  will  not  read  it  with  delight."—  The  Evangelist. 

MASSASOIT 

(NEW) 

A  Romantic  Story  of  the  Indians  of  New  England. 
By  ALMA  HOLMAN  BURTON.  Choice  in  language 
and  sentiment.  Intensely  interesting  and  full  of 
valuable  information  of  Colonial  days.  Sixteen 
Full-page  Illustrations.  I2mo,  Special  Cloth,  $1,25. 


TWO  GOOD  BOOKS  FOR  ANY  LIBRARY. 


THE  MORSE  COMPANY, 

96  Fifth  Ave,,  New  York. 


